Claire Luxton's latest piece, 'Right Before We Wake', sponsored by Adobe, explores the surreal, in-between moments that occur just before we awaken. The show invites viewers to contemplate the magic of dreams and the restorative power of sleep. I was able to attend the press preview on the 27th March – the day before opening night and was able to catch up with Claire to ask her all about it. I also included some footage from the show in my review of the Feiyu Pocket 3 camera and you can check out my vlog from the event here.
Claire told me, "In this ever-shifting world, where time often slips through our fingers, understanding the profound impact of sleep and dreams becomes essential. My work invites the viewer to explore the deep connection between rest and renewal, drawing on timeless symbolism, immersive sound and color."
Claire is arguably best-known for her super detailed surrealist self-portraits which you'll find on her Instagram. Though she explained that she's a multi-disciplined artist and likes the challenge of new mediums – so her latest project presented new obstacles to navigate with stop motion photography and huge video files, to name but a few.
Her latest modern-day immersive, surrealist landscape is bathed in blue, green, and purple, which evoke tranquillity, growth, and introspection. Blue, known to evoke deep relaxation, has graced the works of artists like Yves Klein, whose Blue Monochrome captures the meditative power of the colour. Green, symbolising balance and spiritual renewal, traces back to the Renaissance, where it was often used to represent growth and healing. Purple, connected to introspection, ties into sleep's creative and restorative qualities, offering a space for emotional clarity.
Claire takes the mantle as the resident artist at Frameless Immersive Art Experience in London's Marble Arch, where the show will run from 28th March for three months. Claire's exhibition is one of many there that showcases digital art projected onto the walls of gallery spaces and invites the viewer to dive in, explore and play with their surroundings. It's an art gallery experience unlike any other!
When asked about the obstacles she faced creating the exhibition, which is projected onto three walls of the Frameless gallery in Marble Arch, Claire revealed “Rather than create three different video files to project on to each of the three walls in the exhibition space, I ended up with one enormous file that squeezed all three bits of wall art into one ultra-wide, panoramic aspect ratio. However, with so much data stored in this file it would take around 12 hours to export from Premiere Pro even when using a new Apple M3 Mac. This meant if I spotted any mistakes afterwards I would have to start the process all over again!”.
Frameless Gallery provided Claire with a mapping grid which she could overlay onto her work in Premiere Pro. Rather than creating individual videos for each wall, she revealed it’s actually one huge 1080x7682 file with all three screens in one video file – the gallery's special software then cleverly projects each part to the correct corresponding wall to create the immersive effect.
"My latest residency ‘Right Before We Wake’ is mixed visual media which runs for 10 mins and 39 secs – based on the time taken to fall into stage one N1 sleep, but also explores REM and deep sleep, too. I don’t think I could capture the experience of a dream sequence in a still photo alone so the moving images, which start life as still photos and are then graded and layered or constructed to make textures in Photoshop to complete my vision and create the individual PNG files to create image sequences in Adobe Premiere Pro."
The exhibition is unlike any other and runs until late June, so if you're looking for a new experience to try in London and want to immerse yourself with some modern art I can thoroughly recommend it, tickets are available here. In an ironic twist of fate Claire lost countless nights of sleep working around the clock to make sure her exhibition was ready to go on opening night. Understandably, when asked what's next for her, she simply replied 'sleep'.
