Niamh Clarke’s practice centres on drawing, extending into written prose, watercolour, and Super 8 film as expanded forms of mark-making. Her work explores the poetics of memory and the passage of time, using drawing as both a method of inquiry and a temporal trace.
ARTIST BIO
Niamh Clarke (b.1983 Co. Down) graduated from Fine Art at Belfast School of Art in 2019 and is a studio holder at QSS studios Belfast. She is also a co-founder and member of the collaborative drawing group The Drawing Journal. Recent exhibitions include lucent a touring exhibition of small works by 12 international artists, which showed across Ireland and Plymouth, Ode to Light at Arcade Studios Belfast, and Quiet Wanders Laughing at Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo.
Above: Head, Heart, Hand (Black Mountain College Series), 2025, Niamh Clarke, Digital Print on Paper with Stitch and Text.
Top left: a hands breath (after woodman), Niamh Clarke, 2023, Graphite on Paper. Photo: Gerry Grace
Stretched on Your Grave, Niamh Clarke, 2023, Silverpoint on Paper. Photo: Ignatius WalshInstall at Sligo
Rooted in personal and archival references, Clarke’s work embraces subconscious processes, embodied practice, and materiality. Intuitively composed images suggest narrative and emotion, becoming intermediaries of experience between artist and viewer.
Heavy are the Seas, Niamh Clarke, 2023, Graphite on Paper. Photo: Gerry Grace
Exploring the relationship between photography and drawing, a focus is placed on the embodied presence of gesture and materialisation through re-description of found and personal photographs.
Drawing Class III, Niamh Clarke, 2023, Graphite on Paper. Photo: Gerry Grace