ART OF THE ALLOTMENT

Clare Curtis’s nature-inspired lino cuts and screen prints

Having grown up in Felixstowe, Clare Curtis has long been inspired by the working heritage of her surroundings. A sense of industry runs through her art – nature and man producing something beautiful together from the everyday. Her linocuts and screen prints have a down-to-earth quality that’s full of graphic energy: overall-clad figures haul nets or dig vegetable plots, and plant stems twine across the paper as vigorously as triffids. It’s not surprising that one of Clare’s favourite places to sketch is her allotment. Many of her prints capture her plot (a cycle ride away from her home) in each season. Shortest Day, in which a robin, cabbages, holly and a bearded figure with a red hat and a stalk of sprouts slung over his shoulder, subvert the classic Christmas card image; All Hallows reflects the warm colours of autumn as the gardener gathers his crop of marrows and squashes; Fruits of Our Labours depicts high summer in shades of pink and yellow; while May Day is a hive of industry as the greening plot comes alive and birds circle in search of juicy seeds. Clare has always loved stories, but pictures were more important to her than the written word (‘I didn’t realise it as a child, but I now know I’m dyslexic’), and discovering at school that she could draw things accurately opened up a happy alternative to academic work. She went on to study illustration and printmaking at art college in Dundee and then worked in London as an illustrator, but it wasn’t really what she wanted to do. Then came an opportunity to move back to Felixstowe to live in her late grandfather’s house. Here she knew it was her chance to give printmaking a go. Now Clare works from an old garage behind the house, now converted into a studio with skylights and glass doors to provide plenty of light. There are even windows that overlook the courtyard garden, which supplies much of her inspiration. Her prints decorate everything from deckchair seating at Hampton Court to mustard pots by Suffolk brewer Adnams, as well as nature and cookery books, novels and poetry: she created a repeat design of Tudorbethan houses for a paperback edition of Julian Barnes’s Metroland, and the distinctive oak tree cover of Fiona Stafford’s acclaimed The Long, Long Life of Trees. Clare illustrates her ideas first, favouring striking plant forms and everyday working life in her bright designs. She describes herself more as a gardener than a nature lover. ‘Plants are my thing,’ she says. ‘My love of plant and garden forms finds its way into most of my work, bringing me immense pleasure. Their structure and pattern are a constant inspiration.’ Outside of the planting, Clare’s allotment provides extra food for her creative brain. She loves the variety of its textures and patterns, the slanting lines of tumbledown sheds and corrugated-iron fences, wheelbarrows and tools, and the intricacies of wire mesh in the fencing and cages. ‘I put what I find visually pleasing and what interests me in my prints,’ she says. ‘And by coincidence, they end up exploring my relationship with plants and the very British passion for gardening!’ To see more of Clare’s work visit clarecurtis.co.uk