Claudia Woeltjes – What is Left

As a narrative artist, I explore how natural disasters transform our landscape rapidly in unexpected ways, leaving us to exist in a world that is both foreign yet hauntingly familiar. Many of us have experienced disaster in its different guises. Some forget to look back at the way things were.

My personal experience during the Roleystone–Kelmscott wildfires in 2011 compelled me to create an artwork using charcoal and wood ash blended with wax to represent the terrifying fires and their impact. A thin layer of oil reveals faint and faded memories on the paintings. It asks you “Can you imagine what it was like before?”