Claire Milner originally worked as a graphic designer and freelance illustrator. This background influences her current large scale artworks which are collected internationally. She has created art for celebrity clients such as R&B star Rihanna and for corporations and publishing companies. Her work has a bright, naive quality using tactile materials; she searches for beauty and meaning in minute detail and the big picture simultaneously. Look carefully to see text and messages incorporated into her images, which give information about the subject, or deliver a secondary or subversive message.

Claire experiments with different media, but maintains a recognisable identity throughout her work. She applies the same techniques to various media, and each has a connection to the next. Building an artwork from paper collage involves cutting the individual shapes to fit the composition in the same way as a mosaic. Hole punch dot images have a similar technique to her Swarovski crystal works, and both use similar principles as mosaic in the way the andamento flows. Her mixed media images are an explosive combination of the above and include painting and other media.

Claire's interest in portraiture began many years ago when she was commissioned to produce portraits of Gordon Brown and Nigel Lawson. Known for her distinctive style and ability to capture a likeness – human or animal - with a humorous quality, Claire has researched portraiture in mosaics dating back to the Greek, Roman and Byzantine eras. She expresses her own images in a contemporary Pop Art style even though they are the result of a meticulous study of ancient techniques. Her idealised travel and landscape images of usually crowded places are empty for the viewer to project themselves into.

Whatever the subject matter, one can return to Claire's work again and again and have a new experience each time.

Private Commissions
2010-2011 5ft x 5ft Portrait of Marilyn Monroe in Swarovski Crystals (Commissioned by Gemstone Creative on behalf of R&B star Rihanna for her new home in L.A.)
2010 Pantheon, Roma (Private Collection, Rome)
2010 The Kiss (Private Collection, Rome)
2010 The Matriarch (Private Collection, Rome)
2009 Swarovski Crystal Portraits (Gemstone Creative, London)
2008 Portrait of Bride & Groom (Wedding in East Yorkshire)
2007 Portrait of 'Toby' a Rhodesian Ridgeback (Private Collection, North Yorkshire)
2007 Portrait of Bride & Groom (Wedding in North Yorkshire)
2007 Nine Celebrity portraits (Private Collection)
2007 Portrait of Giovanni Paolo II (Private Collection, Rome)
2007 Portraits of Ludovica & Sofia (Private Collection, Rome)

Exhibitions Include:
2009 Banksy: Due North, John Mackie Gallery, Harrogate, North Yorkshire (largest exhibition of Banksy prints to be held in the North of England, together with original art from John Mackie and Claire Milner)
2009 London Fashion Week, Platform, Hatton Garden, London
2009 Liquorice & Allsorts, Pontefract Museum, West Yorkshire
2009 Music of the Eye, Corinium Museum, Cirencester
2008 Waterways Exhibition, Canal Museum, London
2008 Planet Earth Exhibition, in conjunction with UNESCO & IUGS Opus Mosaic Gallery Exeter, Devon
2007 Facades, Wakefield Art Gallery, West Yorkshire
2006 Symbols of Faith, York Minster, York
2005 Look Galleries, Helmsley, North Yorkshire
2005 Talents Fine Arts, Malton, North Yorkshire
2005 Wilderness, The Makers Guild of Wales, Cardiff
2005 The Elements, Museum in the Park, Stroud
2003 Affordable Art Fair, London
2002 Memories of Italy, Artistic License, London
2002 Panorama of a New Generation, Bernard Chauchet, London
2001 Sunflower Gallery, Beaconsfield, Bucks
2000 Take One Woman, The Atrium Gallery, Whiteley's, London
1999 Paintings in Hospitals, The Sheridan Russell Gallery, London
1998 The Imaginative Traveller Roadshow, London
1998 Look Galleries, Helmsley, North Yorkshire
1997 Harrods, London
1996 The Regency Gallery, Cambridge
1996 The Devizes Summer Festival
1995 Cambridge Open Studios
1995 Looking Forward, CCA Galleries, Cambridge
1994 The Lawson Gallery, Cambridge

Corporate Clients Include:
Anglian Water Plc
Aplin King Associates
CamFed
Cambridge Tourist Board
Caspian Publishing for the CBI Magazine
Dolphin Dynamics Ltd
English Tourism Council
Explore Worldwide
Gemstone Creative
Hobson's Publishing
J&B Distillers
Paper Rose
Powell Publishing
Paul. A. Hill & Co
Reed Elsevier
Rodale Publishing for Men's Health Magazine (UK & South Africa editions)
The Business of Illustration & Media for Artists & Illustrators Magazine
The Royal Society
Union Press Ltd
William Reed Publishing for Wine & Spirit Magazine
Wimbledon Magazine
Zeneca
4C

Books, Critical Reviews & Press Coverage
2010 Mosaic Yearbook
2009 Elle Spain
2009 Grout
2009 Mosaic Yearbook
2008 Grout
2008 Mosaic Yearbook
2007 Mosaic Yearbook
2007 londonart.co.uk (Artist of the Week):
2007 Diana in Art (Caxton Publishing Group)
2007 Funds Europe (September 2007 edition)
"This year is set to be a great year for Milner. 2007 will see the publication of, 'Diana In Art', a book by Mem Mehmet, the author of the best seller, Madonna in Art. It will feature 300 beautiful and varied paintings that celebrate the life of Diana, the People's Princess, and will include one of Milner's original and unique mosaics and two of her handmade paper portraits. Milner's mosaic entitled 'Diana', uses Gold leaf, mirror, vitreous glass and ceramic tile with nuggets of fool's gold to portray the late Diana, Princess of Wales (1961 - 1997)."
2006 Miniatures at the Minster
2004 The Art of Mosaic (Quintet Publishing)
2003 The Complete Mosaic Handbook (Quintet Publishing)
1997 The Business of Illustration & Media
1996 Cambridgeshire Pride Magazine
1996 Artists & Illustrators Magazine


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