|| Artist Statement
My work is a love letter to myself. From myself.
It is an homage to the dark corners; to the chromatic light found shielding me from the darkest halls of my memory.
A trick of the light.
Each memory remade is a celebration of the ancient but never brittle spirit that echoes through the Appalachian landscape and the lives lived within and around my own.
Each painting functions as a call-and-response to energies and ancestors and the impeccable mingling of the two into new worlds and forms, captured in oil and spirit and pigment.
The work is a healing modality and compulsion that, through time, permits a fuller understanding of my spirit in Appalachia, come Hell or high water.
Biography ||
Claira Barilar (b. 1988) is a Northern Appalachian painter, mixed media artist, and educator living and working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. She holds an MEd in Art Education from Carlow University (Pittsburgh, PA USA), an MFA in Painting from Penn West University (Edinboro, PA USA), and a BFA in Studio Art from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Indiana, PA USA). She has been featured on the Create Magazine podcast, in issue 13 of Create Magazine, volume 38 of Studio Visit Magazine, and myriad publications since 2016. She has shown work regionally and internationally, including virtual exhibitions with PxP Contemporary and the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, the longest standing arts organization in the USA. She has completed residencies at SparkBox Studio in Picton, Ontario, Canada and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, USA.
When she isn’t creating or teaching visual arts and jewelry/metal smithing to her high schoolers, Claira can be found with her crystals or deep in a good book. She is a lover of animals, the magic of everyday life, nature, good music, muppets, and iced coffee. Originally from just outside of Punxsutawney, PA, Claira holds a deep love and respect for the rural, wild Pennsylvania hills, and can tell you a good ghost story or two, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.