Clair Lloyd : "Ancestral Skin / Memory"

Meet Clair Lloyd, a Cairns-based artist whose work draws on her South African childhood and a lifelong fascination with nature, texture and the meanings held in everyday materials.

In this film, Clair shares the ideas and processes behind her works for the PROCESS exhibition at CRATE59. Built through layers of beeswax, her circular pieces bring together shed snakeskin, strands of human hair, pearls and gold leaf—inviting us to reconsider what we find beautiful, precious or strange.

Close-up views reveal delicate patterns and objects partly hidden beneath translucent wax. Clair explains how layering, scraping and marking these surfaces allows her to explore memory, transformation and connections to the body.

It’s an intimate look at an artist who finds inspiration in overlooked things, and whose work encourages us to look a little closer.