WEBSITE

Artist Statement:

Anita Clearfield’s installations, videos, and paintings are figurative and turbulent. By forcing together paint, video, and found materials, she creates uneasy alliances between historic art-making (oil paint), modern technology (video and animation) and the larger culture (found objects). Her animations walk an edge between humor and painterly abstraction, engaging the viewer in what is often unseen and unsaid.

Bio:

Anita Clearfield is a media innovator and activist, pushing social boundaries with video art. In 1978, she formed one of the first all-women crews for PBS, pioneering music video techniques in a portrait of the women’s recording company, Olivia Records. She joined the Social Media Action Group, using music and storytelling for the feature documentary, “Vacation Nicaragua,” to counter US intervention in Central America and in a later feature doc, “There Ought to Be A Law,” she co-directed a portrait of a grieving mother turned gun violence activist. She has received many grants, including an American Film Institute (AFI) Independent Filmmakers Grant and a Paul Robeson Media Grant. She has won numerous awards for her films and developed a facility for moving between media, as she served in various capacities in the film and television industry -- from Hollywood to Maine Public. As a staff producer at Maine Public TV, Clearfield wrote/directed/produced docs on topics from “Malaga Island: Facing the Past,” to “The 1937 Lewiston Shoe Strike.” A member of the Artists’ Rapid Response Team (ARRT!), she co-directed a documentary about ARRT!’s founder, entitled “Natasha Mayers: an Un-Still Life.” Clearfield expanded ARRT!’s banner-making into video production by co-founding the LumenARRT! collective. Their large-scale light shows and projections on buildings reclaim public spaces, while creatively amplifying voices of Maine’s under-served and progressive communities. Clearfield holds a BFA in film (Syracuse University) and MFA (Mass Art), where she developed a personal art practice that combines painting, found objects, and animation, often collaborating with poets and creatives to visualize diverse points-of-view.

On winning a Maine Artist Fellowship:

I appreciate that this fellowship recognizes my diverse practice, acknowledging what makes sense to me, but is often not accessible to the larger community. I feel encouraged to take greater risks and re-engage with expanding my work.

Artist Image Gallery: