Claire Watson, Mean Time, 2025. Pattern pieces and remnants of two pairs of leather pants, thread, canvas, and gesso. 72” x 144”
Image courtesy of the artist.
Claire Watson is the 2023 Top Honors recipient of the 84th Artist Members Exhibition, selected by Virginia Lebermann, cofounder and board president of Ballroom Marfa. This exhibition marks Watson’s first major institutional solo presentation on the East End of Long Island, where she has maintained a home and studio in Water Mill for three decades.
Watson’s sculptures and mixed-media assemblages are composed from found materials. In her recent work, she deconstructs salvaged leather garments and reconfigures them into new formal compositions using traditional sewing and pattern-making techniques. These works highlight the tactile and structural qualities of leather, transforming utilitarian objects into forms with renewed expressive potential. The traces of wear embedded in the garments suggest histories of the body and labor, which Watson refashions into abstract meditations on human form and presence.
This exhibition is organized by Melanie Crader, museum director and curator of visual arts, with support from Philippa Content, museum manager and registrar and Claire Hunter, museum coordinator and curatorial associate.
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Claire Watson
Born in Amarillo, Texas, Claire Watson earned a BFA in Painting from the University of Texas in Austin, and an MFA in Sculpture from Tyler School of Art in Rome and Philadelphia. She moved to New York in 1984, supporting her studio practice as a teacher, scenic and decorative painter, and model-maker for a props studio. She's based in New York City and eastern Long Island, where she raised two sons with her husband, artist Stephen Laub. Awards and honors include an Artist Residency at The Watermill Center in 2020; a Residency Fellowship at Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts in 2019; a Fellowship in Sculpture from New York Foundation for the Arts in 2007, and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 1990. Her works are in numerous private and permanent collections, including The Heckscher Museum of Art, The Watermill Center, and Onna House.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Sponsors
Visual Arts programs are supported by funding from Barbara and Richard S. Lane, Lucio and Joan Noto, The Michael Lynne Museum Endowment, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, and additional support provided by The Giuppy Nantista Fund and The Hoie Fund.
Additional support provided by Friends of the Museum: Shari and Jeff Aronson, The Artist Profile Archive, William L. Bernhard, Elizabeth Gordon and Woody Heller, The Hayden Family Foundation, Robert Longo and Sophie Chahinian, Elin and Michael Nierenberg, Onna House, Lori and John Reinsberg, Jeff and Audrey Spiegel, Hillary and Jeff Suchman, Jane Wesman and Don Savelson, and Yurman Family Foundation.
Free gallery admission is sponsored, in part, by Landscape Details.