“At first glance, these sparkling paintings are gorgeous images of endangered animals. Upon closer inspection, however, each work shows a much darker subtext. The hauntingly expressed consequences of poaching, climate change and habitat loss powerfully focus on the plight of some of the world’s most vulnerable species.”— INSPIRED ECONOMIST
Claire Milner's work focuses on her passionate interest in the natural environment, exploring issues around climate change and mass extinction, concerns which have been at the centre of her work for more than two decades.
Claire Milner's practice spans across painting, mixed-media, digital technologies, collage and crystal mosaic methodologies. She uses imagery from extensive research documenting the latest environmental news, combined with art historical tropes and themes from classical literature and mythology. These references are interwoven in the final works to form a blend of topical and historical narratives with densely layered compositions inviting the act of slow-looking. Shifting between abundance and loss, abstraction and figuration, chaos and order, metaphoric and literal, Milner’s work disrupts the long tradition of animal paintings in the history of Western art. In a conversation with art history, current topical issues and the viewer, Milner’s paintings give equal value to creating work that is both aesthetically and environmentally significant.
In 2024, for the second year running, Milner has been awarded Active Membership of the Gallery Climate Coalition, GCC, a community of international art organisations developing the tools, strategies, and research required to help make a positive change in relation to the carbon footprint of the art industry. She is one of only 15 individual artists and collectives worldwide that have been honourably selected.
Her paintings have been widely featured in the global media including the BBC, BBC Brazil, BLOUIN ARTINFO, Channel News Asia, Complex Magazine, Create! Magazine, Creative Boom, Elle, Elle España, Elle Slovenia, Entity, FAD, Forbes, France TV, Fubiz Media, GQ Italia, Haute Living, Hello! Magazine, Huffington Post Arts, International Business Times, MTV Style, Newsweek Poland, OK! Magazine, OK! China, Save Virunga, Sky Arte Italia, Sky Living, Swarovski Elements Magazine, The Flux Review, The Inspired Economist, The Metro, The Observer, The Sun, The Telegraph, The Times, Vogue Paris, Vogue India, WideWalls, and Musings Magazine which interviews thought-leaders and artists in the philanthropic and social impact space, published by Susan Rockefeller.
Claire Milner's work has also been exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. It has been displayed in museum exhibitions including: Ripon Cathedral, York Minster, Corinium Museum, Canal Museum, Pontefract Museum, Museum in the Park, as well as installations in Harrods and Whiteley's. Work from the artist’s Anima Mundi collection was selected by the organising committee to be exhibited on the world’s biggest stage in the Blue Zone of the SEC in Glasgow for the COP26 conference in November 2021 to illustrate species extinction & habitat loss with Explorers Against Extinction, as one of only fifteen exhibits out of thousands of initial applicants to be presented to the delegates.
Claire Milner’s work has raised substantial funds for conservation and environmental organisations, and has won awards for raising awareness of threats facing keystone species. Her paintings have been described as "metaphors of our time" in examining the effects of humans on each other and on other species and ecosystems. She has recently collaborated with Charity: Water, to raise funds for the organisation, which is on a mission to end the global water crisis. She created an exclusive artwork for them, titled, 'The Source', which was exhibited at The Other Art Fair, and subsequently sold to a private collector.
The artist's mixed media painting entitled The Unknown was commissioned by actress Dame Virginia McKenna and auctioned in aid of the Born Free Foundation. It sold to actress and activist Dame Joanna Lumley. Delicate And Mighty sold to a collector in New York in aid of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi. Burning Bright created with 32,000 Swarovski crystals, representing ten times the number of tigers left in the wild, was exhibited in London’s Hotel Café Royal, curated by Christian Furr and auctioned at The Savoy Hotel, selling to an art collector in Germany in aid of Save Wild Tigers, The Born Free Foundation and The Environmental Investigation Agency. In 2021 Milner was selected to take part in Explorers Against Extinction Invitational Exhibition in Norwich Cathedral and at the Oxo Gallery, London, to raise awareness of the threats facing the world’s most iconic species and their habitats while also raising significant funds for nominated projects pivotal in the battle to protect them. The sale of her work at auction contributed towards 21 For 21, a campaign to champion the work of 21 conservation projects from around the world throughout 2021. In October and November 2024, once again, Milner is exhibiting with Explorers Against Extinction at The Dundas Street Gallery below the Fine Art Society in Edinburgh, and the Oxo Tower Gallery in London. This exhibition titled 'On the Brink', is part of a collection created by award-winning internationally known artists in aid of global frontline conservation.
Milner’s artworks are held in a number of public and private collections worldwide, including Blue Marilyn in the collection of Rihanna. Widely featured by the global media, the portrait has appeared on The Official Website of The Estate of Marilyn Monroe, and has been showcased by Swarovski. It was included in a special edition of Vogue Paris, guest edited by Rihanna who featured the work in a profile of her favourite things. Milner's portrait of Amy Winehouse appeared in an exhibition curated by the Amy Winehouse Foundation to mark what would have been the late singer's 30th birthday.