Claire Kambhu | 8:20 – 3:40 | an exhibition

Clare Kambhu
8:20 – 3:40

Curated by Joe Fusaro

On View: September 7 – October 27
Building 35

Opening Reception:
Saturday, September 7 | 7-9pm

Gallery Hours: 2-5pm | Fridays * Saturdays * Sundays

Clare Kambhu is an artist and educator based in Queens, New York. In her painting practice, the attention she dedicates to the commonplace surroundings of daily life leads to questions about the construction of our culture. Her current work focuses on the project of schooling and the ways in which our idiosyncratic humanness can break through within the constraints of educational institutions. She taught in New York City public schools for 9 years. Her work has been shown at the Katonah Museum and the Bronx Museum. Clare is currently a visiting assistant professor at Allegheny College. Clare received her MFA in painting from Yale School of Art. She holds a BFA in studio art and an MA in art education from New York University.

I make paintings depicting institutional furniture as well as abstract pieces which allow me to investigate the internal tensions and contradictions of working within educational institutions. I have taught in New York City public schools full-time for about ten years, and my paintings are portraits of that system. School chairs become stand-ins for the student body and students’ bodies.  – Clare Kambhu, BOMB Magazine, March 2023 

This exhibition features Clare Kambhu’s work in Building 35’s Main Gallery at GARNER Arts Center in Garnerville, New York’s GARNER Historic District. The exhibition is an invitation for the community to contemplate their own experiences of schooling, learning in institutions, and even how portraiture can be accomplished without the presence of the human figure. The exhibition will feature special events for school and community groups, as well as opportunities to engage with the artist and curator.

Clare Kambhu’s work has the ability to immediately put you back in a place where you grew up, where you excelled, or perhaps even experienced extreme challenges. These paintings, which feature carefully constructed compositions, bold color, and energetic brushwork, ask the viewer to linger with images of objects we know so well, but never really examined as we participated in our own education.  – Joe Fusaro, Curator

IMAGE CREDIT: Chair no 20, by Clare Kambhu