Crystal clear

THE most striking thing about North Yorkshire artist Claire Milner’s stunning portrait of Marilyn Monroe isn’t its size (five feet square), or the fact that it’s made out of Swarovski crystals – or even that pop star Rihanna paid tens of thousands of pounds for it (although that generated a fair few headlines).

What hits you is that, despite its size and the way it was made (essentially, a crystal mosaic), it has a raw truth about it. Just look at those eyes, the set of the mouth, and the drawn hollows of the cheeks. There is a real fragility and vulnerability captured there.

Claire is touchingly pleased at this comment. What she set out to do, she says, was capture the “overwhelming sadness” behind Marilyn’s glamorous façade. “There are countless different images of Marilyn smiling and pouting, but my portrait was inspired not only by these images but also by her own words and how I perceived her to be from what I had read about her.

“I wanted people to think about the person behind the headlines when they looked at this portrayal, which is not a typical blonde Marilyn. As she said herself: ‘It takes a smart brunette to play a dumb blonde’.”

Capturing the essence of Marilyn in a such a large piece wasn’t easy, she admits. “I had to constantly stand back to make sure that everything was on course, as it was impossible to see the whole thing close up.”

Because of the way it is made – with 65,000 Swarovski crystals, which flow around the cheekbones and contours of the face – her Marilyn portrait is constantly shifting mood. You can’t really see that in photographs. “But the portrait takes on totally different moods and appearances in changing light conditions.”

There is another haunting secret to it, too. Claire painted a second portrait on the back, of Norma Jeane Baker, the girl from Los Angeles who became Marilyn. It wasn’t something Rihanna asked for, she says. It was something she “felt compelled to do” as a statement about the life of a celebrity.

Her Norma Jeane portrait represents the “hidden and unseen” side of the Hollywood icon. “It was made only to face the wall, whilst its Swarovski mirror image states out at the world as a nod to her own alter ego, Marilyn Monroe.”

There is something almost unbearably poignant about the thought of that portrait of Norma Jeane forever facing the wall. It makes the revealed face of Marilyn even more moving.

So who is this North Yorkshire artist who produced such an enigmatic portrait, and whose work is sought by the likes of Rihanna?

She describes herself as shy – and lives up to that, declining a request for a face-to-face interview. Instead she agrees to be interviewed by email: replying thoughtfully and honestly to a series of questions about her work and life.

She is reluctant to talk about her personal life: revealing only that she is married, and that her husband is a hugely important influence on her work.

He helps her assess her work at the end of each day, she says. “It’s very important to have a fresh pair of eyes who you know will give an honest opinion. It can be difficult to remain objective when you are totally engrossed in something for hours on end...”

She grew up in North Yorkshire, and after moving away to go to university as an 18-year-old, returned nine years ago, and now lives near York. “North Yorkshire is in my heart: it’s where I grew up as a child,” she says.

She loves the scenery, and the fact that the county is so uncrowded. “After living in London for several years, I felt more and more like a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders every time I came back for a visit.”

She has many favourite places here. “Some are nostalgic – where I loved to go during my formative years, such as Castle Howard and the surrounding area.” Others are more recently discovered, after she moved back to the county of her childhood in 2003.

As a little girl growing up in North Yorkshire, she always loved art. “I was constantly drawing and sketching.” It was her dream to become an artist: but she also felt compelled to get a “proper job”.

So she compromised: going to Coventry to study for a degree in graphic design at the age of 18. After completing her degree, she was bitten by the travel bug – funding her journeys around the world by working in the travel industry.

“I spent a year in Australia and several months travelling through many countries on the South American and African continents.” It was eye-opening, she says. She learned how “those with the least in life are the ones who are prepared to share the most”.

Eventually, she found herself in London, working as a graphic designer. It wasn’t really the job for her, however. She began to work more and more as an illustrator – and also began exhibiting her art. Ten years ago, she took the decision to become a full-time artist.

She loves experimenting: and over the years, has worked in everything from paper collages and mosaics to portraits made from what she calls “hole punch dots” and, of course, Swarovski crystals.

It has brought her considerable success. There was that Rihanna commission, of course: but her website also lists BBC Dragon Theo Paphitis and businesswoman Jacqueline Gold as people who like her work. She has exhibited all over the country, and her work hangs in private homes in Beverley Hills, London and Rome, as well as Yorkshire.

She has become known for celebrity portraits – in addition to her Marilyn, there are images of Elvis, David Beckham and Amy Winehouse, and she was commissioned to do portraits of two ex-chancellors, Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister, and Nigel Lawson, as well as a number of other politicians and businessmen.

She doesn’t confine herself to celebrity portraits though. Her work takes in everything from travel, animals and dance to landscapes and climate change.

She particularly enjoys painting animals. She has just finished a stag, done in “mixed media” with Swarovski crystals and violent splashes of colour, that will be one of three of her works going on sale at the Saltbox gallery in Helmsley from March 18 as part of the gallery’s “Creature Great And Small” exhibition.

All three are portraits of animals: the stag, plus a hare and a pheasant.

“After being kept amused by some pheasants in the garden I was inspired to paint one of them,” she says. “I find them beautiful and ridiculous at the same time.”

The pheasant portrait is done in mixed media using a lot of gold, exquisite colours and Swarovski crystals. “The juxtaposition of the humorous appearance and the precious materials is an allegory for outer show being a poor representation of inner worth,” she says.

The stag is inspired by a quote from Emily Dickinson: “A wounded deer leaps highest, I’ve heard the hunter tell; ‘Tis but the ecstasy of death, And then the brake is still.” It is a dramatic piece, with splashes representing blood at the moment of the animal’s death.

The hare, meanwhile, has been described as cheeky and mischievous, she says. “Several people have said it looks like it’s just been caught doing something it shouldn’t!” And so it does.

You won’t be able to see Claire’s portrait of Marilyn, it having been whisked off to a pop star’s home in Hollywood. But the Saltbox exhibition will be a great chance to see some of her other work up close and personal.

• The Creature Great And Small exhibition at the Saltbox gallery in Helmsley, which includes Claire Milner’s three animal portraits, begins with a special opening on Sunday, March 18, from noon to 4pm, and runs until the end of May.

Making Marilyn

Making a giant portrait of Marilyn Monroe out of 65,000 Swarovski crystals was not easy.

It took four months to create - six including the design stage, Claire says. “Luckily I have a very understanding husband…”

The sheer size of the piece – 5ft x 5ft – presented challenges. “I had to do a lot of research into the thickness of acrylic that would accommodate both its own size and the weight of the crystals without bending or warping. I also did many tests over several weeks before deciding on the ideal glue. Because of its scale and weight, the portrait needed to be worked on in an upright position; this meant that the crystals had to be held in place until the glue dried and working positions were often arduous to say the least! At one stage, I dislocated my shoulder whilst moving the portrait which weighed 53kg before work began and 80kg on completion…”

Working in crystal is hugely time-consuming – each piece has to be placed by hand. Despite the challenges, however, she loves it as a material.

“I love to see people’s reactions to an original Swarovski crystal artwork. They often stare open-mouthed because the crystals are constantly changing depending on the light conditions. In sunlight they can be dazzling, sending scatterings of reflected colours around the room and in the semi dark they change mood altogether and the image takes on the appearance of a hologram.”

• To find out more about Claire and her work, visit claire-milner.co.uk