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Claire Kiester is a fiber artist, printmaker and public artist from Chapel Hill, NC. She completed her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and now resides in Charlotte, NC. She uses fiber and crochet techniques to transform and activate interior and exterior space. She aims to reduce her waste as an artist by utilizing recycled materials and eco-friendly production methods. In recent projects, she is exploring pattern and repetition as a visual tool and performative process of making. This work investigates the systems within our society and the residue they leave behind.
Her work has been featured in galleries and events such as The McColl Center, Frank Gallery, The Compound Gallery in Emeryville, CA, and The LeRoy Nieman Center in Chicago, IL. She has created many large-scale public art installations throughout North Carolina. These include her pieces for The Charlotte International Arts Festival, Charlotte SHOUT!, and Uproar Festival of Public Art in Chapel Hill, NC.
Kiester currently works as a teaching artist at Studio 345, an afterschool program for at-risk youth, and as an artist in the greater Charlotte community.
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Education
2018 - 2021 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Bachelor of Fine Arts
2014 - 2018 Chapel Hill High School
Residencies/Fellowships
2023 Blumenthal Fellow - Blumenthal Performing Arts and the Charlotte International Arts Festival, Charlotte, NC
2022 Project Protéjé - Charlotte, NC
Solo/Small Group Exhibitions
2023 Medley, Mooresville Arts Gallery - Mooresville, NC
2023 Tasty, The Sertoma Art Center - Raleigh, NC
Group Exhibitions
2024 All Are Free, Hart Witzen Gallery - Charlotte, NC
2024 704 Night, The Spectrum Center - Charlotte, NC
2024 Repetition: The Marks Left Behind, Goodyear Arts - Charlotte, NC
2023 Best of the East, 311 Gallery - Raleigh, NC
2023 Picture Card Series, Milton RhodesCenter for the Arts - Winston Salem, NC
2023 Scaffold, Artspace - Raleigh, NC
2023 Unconventional, The Arts Factory - Charlotte, NC
2022 BRUSHED, Compound Gallery - Emeryville, CA
2022
FRESH, Artspace - Raleigh, NC
2022 Raconteuse, Project Protège - Charlotte, NC
2021 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Undergrad Exhibition, SAIC Site Galleries - Chicago, IL
2020 Imprints: Past & Present, Vacant Museum - Virtual
2019 Art Bash, The LeRoy Nieman Center - Chicago, IL
2016 Rubbish II Runway, Frank Gallery - Chapel Hill, NC
2014 Arts Focous, The Arts Center - Carborro, NC
Public Art
2023 Luminous Loops, Charlotte International Arts Festival, Charlotte, NC
2023 Crispy, Uproar Festival of Public Art, Orange County, NC
2023 !CON, Charlotte SHOUT! - Charlotte, NC
2022 100 Tiny Things, Charlotte Internation Arts Festival - Charlotte, NC
Curatorial Projects
2024 Repetition: The Marks Left Behind, Goodyear Arts, Charlotte, NC (Kathryn Desplanque, Nicole Driscoll, Molly English, Sarah Elise Hall, Becca Ibarra, Claire Kiester, Isabella Losskarn, Chieko Murasugi, Vũ Hoàng Khánh Nguyên, Emily Núñez, Meg Stein, Millie Weeks)
Awards/Grants
2024 ASC Creative Mecklenburg Grant
2024 ArtPop Cities Program 2024
2022 HUG Micro Grant (Helpful Unfettered Gift), Charlotte is Creative
Articles/Publications
2023 Celebrating the Blumenthal Fellows Class of 2023
2023 Wake Up to the Arts: The Public Art of Uproar!
2023 Look at These Women Artists... and Their Creative Process!
2021 Okay Cool Magazine, Issue #4
2021 Polemical Zine, Issue 15: Memory Vol.1
2020 Artist Spotlight: Claire Kiester’s Pickle Screen Prints
Contact Me
︎ ckiester@nc.rr.com
︎ (919)525-4439
