Claire Cansick

Detail of a diptych, skeleton spanning the two sides

Painting of a violet wave, finished today

Multicoloured wave with many skeletons swirling within

Blue wave with ten skeletons

Oil painting of a wave, with a face within

Always making. If I’m not making I’m thinking about making. Yes, even when I’m talking to you.
It’s all lined up neat and pretty on my website, should you want a trawl.

Hump of an impending wave with serpents beneath its surface

The Realm Between
45.5 x 61cm
Oil on wood
2025

Charcoal drawing of a mountain, head in the clouds, waterfall steaks and trees in the foreground.

Charcoal drawing of a mountain, head in the clouds, waterfall steaks and trees in the foreground.

Charcoal drawing of a mountain, head in the clouds, waterfall steaks and trees in the foreground.

Charcoal drawing of a mountain, head in the clouds, waterfall steaks and trees in the foreground.

Been drawing mountains. Not the snow capped pinnacles we are often fed, but the soft green giants of the West Highlands, tear streaked with countless waterfalls.

The last few days of World of Water at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, closes the end of Sunday 3 August. What a wonderful time I’ve had, thank you everyone involved.

When I look at this page of my website, it all makes so much sense to me. I see this way, my eyes actually see via the palette I use in my work, to me the world is full of violet, I am obsessed with its influence.

It is then I remember that what speaks to me and about me; a muted palette, dirty, dark, dancing between warm and cool, mixed and muddled. I’m a messy palette painter, not unorganised, yet allowing colours to bleed into one another, shifting things, unexpectedly.

A page of 12 of my paintings of the sea.

I sometimes look at others work, and wonder at their use of bright or clean colour, wonder if I ought to try it, mix things up a bit. Then I bump into a Sickert, and my heart pounds.

Wave painting on the easel

Detail of crying wave painting

Detail of a wave painting

Details of a wave painting

Detail of a wave painting

It’s coming on. I’m enjoying the colour palette.
Work in progress, oil on board.

Painting of several skeletons tumbling in a wave, a ship idles on the horizon.

Detail of a painting of skeletal bones underwater.

Detail of a painting of skeletal bones underwater.

Detail of a painting of a ship on the horizon

Bone Soup II, oil on wood, 61 x 45.5cm 2025

I think I could go big working this way. Trouble is I’ve nowhere to put it if I do.

Painting of a wave in pinks purples and greens, a skeleton tumbles within.

Photo of the painting in full, with a white background.

Close up of the skeleton swirling in the water

Sent this baby off to the framers today. After framing work for Sainsbury Centre in black, at the curator’s request, I’m a convert. Looking forward to seeing it completed. It is off to Scotland in a few weeks.

Tangle of sea serpents within a wave drawn in charcoal

More of this, broke in a brand spanking new sketchbook with this drawing. I like it, am going to do more.
Been reading Iris Murdoch again where the serpent represents the main character’s dark psyche, loose morals and delusion.

❤️

Sea serpent charcoal drawing of a snake swimming in a wave.

Rough palimpsest background with a smooth snake painted on top. Work in progress.

Sea Serpent drawing and the beginnings of a painting of the same thing. Both works in progress.

Seascape with a tumbling skeleton thoroughly enjoying themselves, a distant ship passes by on the horizon. Life goes on.

Detail of skeleton, I think I detect a grin

Detail of wavelets

Detail of horizon with a tanker passing by

Deeply satisfying painting to make as the colour gods were on my side. Skeletons have obvious connotations, but in this case, they are, of course, me. Me so in love with the sea I never want to get out.

Never Knew Love
Oil on wood
51 x 61cm
2025

Haar, a dark seascape of undulating wave with a band of light and a ship on the horizon.

Detail of Haar horizon with a violet sky, strip of light and a ship merging into a band of indigo.

Haar, oil on canvas, 2023

The largest painting I have ever made Haar, measures 176 x 293cm, and will be shown at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts March 15 - August 3 2025 in World of Water as part of this season’s exhibition Can the Seas Survive Us?

Aphrodite Reborn a wave painting with a mysterious shadow holding seaweed, which is how I feel while in the North Sea, except the seaweed is in my hair and I’m swearing at the cold.

Shadow form holding seaweed detail

Horizon detail with distant buoy which marks the shipwrecked SS White Swan off Gorleston

Aphrodite Reborn, oil on canvas, 2023

This painting is the second to be exhibited at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts March 15 - August 3 2025 in World of Water, part of this season’s exhibition at the institution Can The Seas Survive Us? which explores our relationship with the North Sea.

Scroby Sands, oil on canvas diptych, 2024.

Its debut will be at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts from March 15 - August 3 2025 in The World of Water, as part of Can The Seas Survive Us? exhibition exploring our relationship with the North Sea.