Artist - Painter
Claire McCall
"I paint almost exclusively with a palette knife to capture the raw energy of light and movement. I want to invite the viewer into the scene—leaving space for them to fill in the blanks of time, place, and emotion."
Claire McCall’s paintings are a bold fusion of abstraction and realism, capturing fleeting moments in time with a distinctive, textural approach. Her signature style combines impressionistic backgrounds, applied with a palette knife, and realistic subjects detailed in expressive brushstrokes. The result is a dynamic interplay of lost and found edges, where the viewer is drawn into the narrative, filling in the blanks about time, place, and emotion.
Her subjects are often solitary figures, turned away from the viewer, caught in candid poses that evoke a sense of intimacy and quiet contemplation. By embracing the drama of abstraction versus realism, Claire creates movement and spontaneity in each piece. Her "alla prima" (wet-on-wet) technique ensures freshness, allowing each confident stroke—whether from brush or palette knife—to bring energy and life to the composition. Claire’s approach to oil painting is deeply tactile; she loves the loss of control that comes with using a palette knife, letting the buttery texture of the paint dictate the form, creating rich surfaces that shimmer with depth.