Carolyn Clayton

Carolyn Clayton is an artist whose work seeks to cultivate an enhanced awareness of our shared lives with things. She has long been interested in the traces that human beings leave on material objects. Not only the observable scratches, smudges and smells that hint at past occurrences, but also the invisible and undetectable ones. She is enamored with how something as simple as touch can drastically shift an object’s perceived value, making it tainted or treasured (contaminated or cherished). This has positioned her to ask whether object history is retained in the fragments of everyday things, which she explores by interacting with, collecting, photographing, pulverizing and reassembling second-hand objects.