Clare Menck is a figurative painter specializing in oils. Her passion for painting figures in a landscape setting in or around water is further augmented with a line of self-portraiture often (but not always) swimming. The landscape (especially water) becomes a metaphor for a deeper meaning surrounding the human subjects that inhabit it as if they are players on a natural stage. The artist revels in summery subjects making bathers her focus; Clare is renowned for her delightful painterly treatment of light and colour especially when capturing swimmers in water.
Lately, in a more moody atmospheric vein, Clare has turned to painting hounds by pools in moonlight and occasionally ‘retro’ subjects with some social commentary. Her different themes always have in common an uncanny observation of experienced reality portraying a deep sense of the inner worlds of these human and animal subjects.
Clare Menck is a Master’s graduate from the University of Stellenbosch with an Advanced Diploma in Fine Art from Michaelis (UCT). Her retrospective book “Clare Menck: Hidden Life” edited by Stefan Hundt, curator of Sanlam’s Art Collection, travelled the country to major museums and galleries as the accompanying catalogue to her mid-career retrospective celebrating 20 years of painting. Clare was included in the Top 40 selection of the Sanlam Portrait Awards national portrait competition twice (2013 and 2015).