Artist's Talk with Lenka Clayton

Denison’s Studio Art program welcomes Lenka CLayton presenting an artist’s talk.

Clayton is a British conceptual artist whose work considers, exaggerates and alters the accepted rules of everyday life, extending the familiar into the realms of the poetic and absurd. In previous works she has hand-numbered 7,000 stones; searched for all 613 people mentioned in a single edition of a German newspaper; filmed one person of each age from 1 to 100, and reconstituted a lost museum from a sketch on the back of an envelope. She and writer Michael Crowe are currently in the middle of writing a unique, personal letter to every household in the world. She is currently serving as the first ever Artist-in-Residence-in-Motherhood.

Clayton’s work has been exhibited widely including the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, FRAC Le Plateau in Paris, Kunsthalle St. Gallen in Switzerland, Anthology Film Archives in New York City, a Danish mediaeval tower, Tehran International Documentary Festival in Iran and just after the evening news on Channel 4 TV in the U.K. as well as in publications including Frieze, Art & Agenda, and Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology.

Clayton holds an Master of Arts in Documentary Direction from the National Film & Television School, UK and a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Central St. Martins, London. She has taught at institutions in the U.K., US and Sweden including a stint as Theodore Randall International Chair at Alfred University in New York. She was recently awarded a Creative Development Grant from the Pittsburgh Foundation, and an award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation. She lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she was named Emerging Artist of the Year 2013.