Clare Matheson attended Auckland University, where she studied
for a Bachelor of Visual Arts majoring in Painting. Completing her
degree in 2003, Matheson was honoured with the Top Graduand prize
for her work. Following this success, Matheson continued her
studies, graduating with a Masters of Art (Art and Design) from
Auckland University of Technology in 2006.
On the surface, Matheson's works appear Minimalist in their
outlook. Her hard-edged forms and bold blocks of colour recall the
work of 1960's American proponents of the genre such as Kenneth
Noland and Frank Stella. However, Matheson's practice differs
greatly in philosophy and content from that of the early
Minimalists. Where Minimalism as a style sought to reduce the work
of art to its primary values of colour, form, line and texture by
emphasising those exact points for their own sake, Matheson's work
utilises those primary values in the opposite manner: as conveyors
of meaning; each form becoming a symbolic referent rather than
simply an aesthetic element.
In Matheson's work, these forms often refer to statistical data,
such as the diminution of endemic bird life in New Zealand since
1300AD. Matheson's use of colour and texture imparts further
symbolism to her referents - as a colourist, Matheson chooses to
work with tones that convey a particular emotional reaction to the
meaning and implication of certain statistics. In this way,
Matheson's works are not simply statistical demonstrations, but
data analysed and re-presented with an awareness of its
implications.
Extrapolated out, Matheson's references to (and treatment of)
statistical data in a Minimalist guise allude to the notion of the
constant collection of data through surveillance and the way in
which surveillance has become a necessary and even accepted part of
everyday life. As such, her works provide a comment on the modern
'information society' and the social symptoms of unease and anxiety
engendered by the sense that this way of life is not only
inexorable, but also inescapable.