Clare Nattress’s Drift 2010 installation, Stone Soup, York, until October 8 (From York Press)

Clare Nattress’s Drift 2010 installation, Stone Soup, York, until October 8

11:47am Thursday 2nd September 2010 in

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CLARE Nattress steps into the spotlight from Friday as the ArtWork series at Stone Soup welcomes its third York St John University graduate of the summer.

The series is being co-ordinated by Tom Sharp, director of the Stone Soup creative agency in Walmgate, and Greg and Ails McGee, of The ArtSpace, Tower Street, York.

“It’s Clare’s turn to hold the torch, and we anticipate a show that will be just as thrilling as Matt Durrant’s and Tom Hodgson’s,” says Greg.

“Like Matt, she’s concerned with experimenting with photography. She plans to build on the success of her degree show, and what’s especially exciting is that she’s going with video installation – and the Stone Soup offices lend themselves beautifully to such carefully edited films. It’s going to be a great private-view launch on Friday evening, and we’re honoured to be involved with the debut of such a hard-working, interesting young artist.”

Clare’s creative practice “documents the notions of public and private spaces producing a street-level gaze into her everyday surroundings”. “My observations of urban environments seek to transform our familiar everyday experiences into something new and unexpected,” she says.

For her graduate exhibition, she installed Daylight Saving Time, a work that stemmed from her investigations into human vulnerability, endurance and immersing yourself into the public sphere.

During this performance, a photograph of the artist was made every hour, while Clare recorded her own field of vision, allowing dual perspectives of her environment. Consequently, she was able to mark the passage of real time and its effects on form.

In her new work, entitled Drift 2010, Clare tests the waters of video installation by creating a piece that “attempts to consider of the totality of everyday life, through the passive movement through space”. In juxtaposition to Daylight Saving Time, this time she is filmed moving unhurriedly and smoothly along an isolated beach until out of sight.

“The use of video in this work utilises all aspects of its surrounding environment as a vehicle for affecting the audience and their experience of the work,” says Clare.

The ongoing ArtWork programme continues to impress Greg.

“The series has benefited massively from signing up the four York St John graduates. Tom Sharp and I have been blown/ away by the artists’ vision and attention to detail, two areas which can at times be mutually exclusive,” he says.

“You get artists who crackle with wild, intriguing ideas, and they’re great to be around, but getting them to approach the job of finishing the work and presenting it is like dragging a schoolboy to school.

“Conversely, there are a lot of artists who are obsessed with crisp, precise finishes but the building blocks – the vision, the process – are insipid and bloodless.

“The graduates have done us, York St John and themselves proud. We were excited enough when we signed them up, and to see them step up to the plate and produce world-class shows has been humbling.”

• Clare Nattress’s Drift 2010 installation will be on display at Stone Soup, York, until October 8. Friday’s private view is from 5pm to 8pm.