Martha Clippenger

Martha Clippinger (b. 1983) is a North Carolina based multi-media artist. Clippinger’s work blurs the lines between painting and sculpture, fine art and folk, craft and design. The artist intuitively explores color, geometry, and texture while constructing dimensional paintings from scraps of wood and sewing quilts from reclaimed fabrics. Clippinger embraces the inherent imperfections of found materials and integrates them into the off-kilter geometries and irregular symmetries of their designs.

A curiosity to learn about different materials engages the artist in a variety of processes. Clippinger’s developed a visual vocabulary of colors, shapes, and which forms across a range of media that includes not only wooden constructions and quilts, but also woolen weavings and ceramics. The painted constructions, while modest in scale, occupy a space beyond their physical dimensions, and the large, woolen tapestries shift from wall to floor and back again. Clippinger uses these objects to play with architecture and draw attention to the relationship between the artwork and its surrounding.

Martha Clippinger most recently exhibited with Elizabeth Harris Gallery in NYC, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens in Philadelphia, PA, and Hodges Taylor in Charlotte, NC. Her practice and work was featured in Burnaway’s September editorial “Take Five: Textiles.” She has instructed at Duke University, NC and Penland School of Craft, NC.