Bay area based, internationally-shown artist Clare Rojas works in a wide variety of media: painting, installations, video, street art, and children’s books. Her work has been considered to have been emblematic of San Francisco’s Mission School, “a loose group working in San Francisco in the nineties who shared an affinity for old wood, streetscapes, and anything raw or unschooled. They take their inspiration from the urban, bohemian, “street” culture of the Mission District and are strongly influenced by mural and graffiti art, comic and cartoon art, and folk art forms such as sign painting and hobo art. These artists are also noted for use of non-traditional artistic materials, such as house paint, spray paint, correction fluid, ballpoint pens, scrapboard, and found objects.”-clare rojas, wikipedia; mission school, wikipedia; dana goodyear, a ghost in the family, the new yorker
Rojas’ work referenced: “…West Coast modernism, Quaker art, Native American textiles, Byzantine mosaics, and Outsider art, Rojas tells stories through painting, installations, and video. Often her narratives concern relationships between the sexes and among humans and animals, in their struggle to find harmony and balance. Many works quietly celebrate the traditional strengths of women, depicting them like Russian nesting dolls in conventional roles without critical undertones or hints of sexual exploitation. Quilt-like patterns in vivid colors accentuate the folk art-inspired scenes present in some works, while simple geometric forms and stark interiors evoke Bauhaus design in others.” -clare rojas, biography, artsy.net
Over the past 8 or so years, her figurative, folk art-toned work has given way to pure geometric abstractions. Her paintings are made with oil paint on both linen and paper.
Rojas also plays guitar and banjo under the stage name Peggy Honeywell. As Peggy Honeywell, she wore a long wig and flouncy calico dresses, and sometimes, because she was shy, a paper bag over her head. She has released two albums: Faint Humms (2005) and Green Mountain (2006)
“Dijkstra also finds rawness and vulnerability in people who are physically exhausted, such as mothers who have given birth, or matadors who have just left the bullfighting ring. Like the teenagers, their identity is in a precarious state, their exhaustion undermining their ability to pose. In this sense, these pictures are the converse of her photos of teenagers, which capture the making of identity. While the bloodied faces and jackets of the bullfighters remind us of the masculine violence and courage that defines their identity as bullfighters, their tired faces are softened and reveal their fragility as human beings. A similar series features the three naked mothers who have just given birth, and look fatigued and afraid. The hint of roundness in their bellies evokes the image of a saintly pregnant woman, and the way in which they clutch their babies to their chest is evidence of the maternal protective instinct. Yet they have just undergone a monumental change, from being pregnant to being a mother, and the photographs primarily confront us with their fear and exhaustion—rarely associated with the image of motherhood.” -Lauren Vanzandt-Escobar, Rineke Dijkstra’s Retrospective: Identity and the Expressive Fallacy, The American Reader,
The Incubator 