Amber Clarke discusses taking risks during her time at Nottingham Trent University and her blood-soaked, sensuous installations. Surface volunteer Orla Sprosen spoke to Amber before the EM25 Intervals install to get to know more about her macabre artwork.

What was your experience as a student at NTU? Especially as someone who was new to Nottingham (Amber grew up and currently lives near Milton Keynes)…

It was a very crazy experience. My tutors for second and third year were incredible. The general organisation of the course wasn’t so great, but I feel like that’s quite normal for any art department in education because it’s run by artists. Artists aren’t the most formal or organised people… Overall, they were really good.

The writing side, however, was horrific, because that’s not a bit of me. I’m dyslexic, so I was just like, ‘No thanks.’ I struggled with that for a bit, but one of my tutors helped me out so much — she was really good. They are very eager to push you out of your comfort zone!

How did you find that and how did you respond to it?

[I found it] Absolutely terrifying. When I first met my tutor, she was very confident and so cool, so I was a little bit scared of her! I did just about everything she said…

…Once I got to know her, it was fine, but at the beginning I was scared of her. She was like, ‘You need to stop doing small things,’ and I was like (shrieks), ‘Okay, okay, I’ll do bigger things?’

I think the thing that really pushed me to go so big, and to go all out — which worked massively in my favour — was when she sat me down and said, ‘Look, if you don’t do it now, when are you going to do it? When are you next going to have the opportunity in a gallery space to be able to show work?’ She was so right, and I thought that would probably never happen.

Now I’m sat here, that’s not so true, but (laughs) I didn’t know that then, so I thought I might as well go out with a bang.

Do you think you’re carrying on that momentum from your degree show into this residency?

I’m trying to. I keep hearing (my tutor’s) voice echoing in my head every time I do something. Trying not to plan out exactly what I’m going to do is something I found really hard to get in the habit of, which I’m trying to carry on doing. I find that when I overplan, it turns out looking really bad because I put too many restraints on what it could be. That’s why with this residency, I don’t care what spot I have in the Main Gallery; I will just turn up, find a spot, and then let it do its own thing.

How do you think your work — wherever it may be — will be in dialogue with the other artworks in the space?

I think it will stand out because it is so much more aggressively gory than the others. I do think it will go quite well because it focuses on texture and fabrics when you break it down. I think it will go with the other textile pieces that we have going on. A lot of people are using lace [Lucy Vardy, Becky Liberty] and lace-inspired work. Jas [Sproule] has knitted pieces that are quite delicate. For the paintings [by Olly O’Neill, Xin Chen, Charlie Cook], they are not hyper-realistic or intricate portraits but landscapes with ‘urbany’ colour and textures. I feel like that will go together well.

I can absolutely see that. When you strip back the surface layer, there’s a textural motif going on; whether that’s materially or in the scrappiness of the paint.

“The goal is to catch someone’s attention with morbid curiosity. To see something disgusting and go, ‘Ugh, what is that?’ and then it makes you want to look at it more. ”

Can you talk to me about the title of ‘Intervals’?

The more I think about the title, the more it’s actually helped me think about what my work has been inspired by. It sounds crazy, but I’ve always been fascinated by blood, and I’ve never been grossed out by gory things. I’ve always been weirdly interested in it — the colour, the texture, and how it looks. I never really knew why, but I’ve always rolled with it because it made the work.

After thinking about the title of the exhibition, it’s kind of started to make me realise that it’s all got a lot to do with my exposure to large quantities of blood in the past. From my dad thinking he’s good at DIY when he’s actually very clumsy, to my grandad having blood cancer, I’d say I’ve been exposed to quite traumatic situations that I’ve never seen as traumatic. Thinking about the title and how it relates to my work has helped me realise that the inspiration is coming from deep-rooted memories that I’ve not fully associated with yet. I feel like it works quite well with my work on a personal level, even if it’s not obvious to others looking at it.

‘Pre-blood’, if you like, what sort of work were you making and how did you connect to it?

Pre-blood, my portraits were inspired by this idea of female rage. At the time, this was really relevant to me because living in a city, going on nights out, you are subjected to a lot of nasty things that really get you annoyed, but you can’t do anything about it. I wanted a way to try and show people — not just men — that feeling of rage, where you can feel your face burning if they’ve never felt it before.

It was alright; I liked the way the work came out, but I got to a point where I thought the work wasn’t quite ‘hitting’; something was missing. I started to think about using textures to make more gory references by using paint on red fabric instead of on canvas. Essentially, my tutor said to me, ‘I don’t know why you don’t just do that. Blow it up big. See what comes out of it.’ The textures in themselves, without the paintings or any other meaning behind them, were really interesting. So I did, and it got bigger and bigger, and grosser and grosser!

Credit: @ssophiestephensart, @surfacegallery

It sounds like you found what you were interested in — your ‘niche’, I guess — and you blew it up to give it the time and space. So how would you describe what you make now?

I would describe my work as large-scale installations that I’m also trying to make quite immersive. Not only are you seeing all the textures, but when I have my water pumps with dripping dye, it creates a sound that is quite eerie. Something I’ve also been trying out during the EM25 residency is using iron filings with my fabric to create this rusty, bloody, metallic kind of smell. But now I’ve got a cold, so I don’t know if it smells anything like blood or iron (laughs), but I do like the way it looks. It looks gross — the way the iron has rusted onto the fabric and looks all clotted.

So it doesn’t sound like working pretty is the goal… What would you describe your aesthetic goal to be?

The goal is to catch someone’s attention with morbid curiosity. To see something disgusting and go, ‘Ugh, what is that?’ and then it makes you want to look at it more. As you get closer, you have to really inspect the materials, the beauty, the texture, and how they’re interacting with each other. I feel like if it’s too pretty-looking straight off the bat, it doesn’t have the same effect as making people grossed out and then seeing the other side of it.

I think that’s quite a big thing for me. With blood, I’ve never understood people who are scared of it. I see it as incredible — it’s literally keeping you alive. For others, looking at blood can make them feel ill. I wanted to show those two sides and the contradictions. It’s life and death; it can be disgusting and beautiful.

What do you think of Nottingham and its art spaces?

I love it — it’s such a creative place. It’s what my mum would describe as ‘artsy-fartsy’, and I love it! It’s the kind of place where you walk down the street and can see how many creative people there are doing different art things, music, and all sorts. There are so many different opportunities going on here, too. I don’t want to leave… Even though it is quite a big city, you can still bump into someone and end up chatting for hours with a random bloke the same age as your dad who is really interested in your art career! You don’t get that kind of place anymore.

Interview by Orla Sprosen.

You can find more about Amber Clarke’s work on Instagram (@amber.charlotte_art).

For more insights on the EM25 Graduate Project and to hear more about the latest news at Surface Gallery, head over to our Instagram.