ABOUT
“I began as an illustrator being commissioned by publications to illustrate portraits of famous business leaders and politicians. Similar private works included the commission from Rihanna to create a 5’ square portrait of Marilyn Monroe in Swarovski Crystals. This gained a huge amount of attention in the global media and many similar commissions followed. I had known for a long time that portraits of people alone were not fulfilling me. My whole life had been spent in nature, contributing to causes that protected animals and their habitats. It took me a long time to find a way to incorporate these themes into my work because the images I was seeing in my research were so distressing. After a conversation with a representative of WWF I had a light-bulb moment and began creating work with a surface optimism and the revelation of deeper meanings on subsequent viewings. Since then I have consistently been making bodies of work with themes of climate change, habitat loss and extinction and have raised large funds for conservation organisations. I have had many fulfilling and enduring collaborations with individuals I have respected for years. This finally seems like a perfect fit between exhibiting as an artist and the values and beliefs I hold in my life .”
“Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Artists throughout history have chronicled the important issues of their time. The subjects I pursue are extremely personal to my identity and value systems as an environmentalist, yet they are also universal and reaching a critical tipping point for every individual regardless of ethnicity, gender, class or religion. Climate change and biodiversity loss are the existential threats of our time and the international language of art is an extraordinary agent for discourse around such momentous and difficult topics. To be true to my values, my work goes further than highlighting these issues to include regularly donating funds raised from the sale and auction of paintings to support the ongoing projects of climate and environmental organisations. This ensures that my art has a direct connection and a positive effect on the content it speaks about. The human impact on the environment, and the current rapid rate of extinction are issues which have devastating implications as the biggest challenges we face. Without the resolution of these overarching issues, we may not have the luxury to concern ourselves with others.
As an industry and as individuals we must act urgently to reduce the impact on the environment of travel, shipping, materials and energy.” - CLAIRE MILNER
Read Claire Milner’s Environmental Responsibility Statement
BIOGRAPHY
Claire Milner is a British artist based in North Yorkshire. She studied her Foundation in Art and Design at Harrogate School of Art, and went on to Coventry Polytechnic, U.K. from where she graduated in Graphic Design and Typography. Before devoting her career to fine art, she worked as an illustrator in London, where she was commissioned by many large corporations and publishing companies. She illustrated portraits of British Chancellors Gordon Brown and Nigel Lawson for major publications, leading to further portrait commissions of politicians, Central European Bankers and company CEOs such as Sir Terry Leahy, Sir Martin Sorrell and Lord Browne. An African trip inspired the painting Mother and Child, a mixed media work which was exhibited in Cambridge and acquired by CamFed, an organization which helps fight poverty in Africa by educating and empowering girls, and who subsequently commissioned five similar artworks to form a series. In the early nineties Milner studied under the eminent international mosaic artist Elaine M Goodwin, founder of Tessellated Expression for the 21st Century (TE-21). This was to welcome a new departure for her work, whilst at the same time representing an organic evolution of her early paper collage illustrations.
Milner’s work has raised substantial funds for conservation and environmental organisations and 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. In October and November 2024 the artist once again exhibited her work with Explorers Against Extinction at The Dundas Street Gallery below the Fine Art Society in Edinburgh and at the Oxo Tower Gallery in London. This ‘On The Brink’ exhibition is part of a collection created by award-winning and International artists from around the World in aid of global frontline conservation. She has collaborated with charity: water to raise funds for the organisation which is on a mission to end the global water crisis. She created The Source an exclusive artwork which was exhibited at The Other Art Fair and sold to a private collector in the U.K. Work from the artist’s Anima Mundi Collection was selected by the organising committee to be presented to the delegates in the Blue Zone of the SEC in Glasgow for the COP26 conference in November 2021 to illustrate species extinction & habitat loss. The work was exhibited with Explorers Against Extinction which was chosen as one of only fifteen exhibits out of thousands of initial applicants. Her work was subsequently selected for a curated exhibition on the theme of climate change, to coincide with COP27. In 2021 Milner was selected to take part in Explorers Against Extinction Invitational Exhibition in Norwich Cathedral and at the Oxo Gallery, London. The primary aims were to raise awareness about 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. Her work was later auctioned and the sale contributed towards 21 For 21, a campaign to champion the work of 21 conservation projects from around the world throughout 2021. Logging the Leuser (Anima Mundi Collection) was featured by David Shepherd Wildlife Art, home of Wildlife Artist of the Year and the same painting was also chosen in a curated collection for Earth Day 2021. Ocean Rainforest (Anthropocene Extinction Collection) featuring coral reefs and sea turtles won the Oceanic Global x Alpha'a Artivism Challenge, following which it was exhibited during Art Basel Miami in December 2017. The competition utilised the visual arts to raise awareness about six critical issues impacting our ocean. The judges included Susan Rockefeller, Dustin Yellin, Aaron Levi Garvey, Doumi Busturia, Alexandre Arrechea and Zaria Forman. The artist's mixed media painting entitled The Unknown (Holocene Twilight Collection) commissioned by actress and animal activist Dame Virginia McKenna was auctioned in aid of the Born Free Foundation and sold to actress and activist Dame Joanna Lumley in November 2017. Milner's crystal mosaic portrait of an elephant-poaching victim Delicate and Mighty (True Value Collection) was sold to a collector in New York in aid of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi in 2016. Burning Bright (True Value Collection) created with 32,000 Swarovski crystals representing ten times the number of tigers left in the wild at that time, was exhibited at an exhibition in London’s Hotel Café Royal, curated by Christian Furr in 2015. It was subsequently auctioned at The Savoy Hotel and sold to an art collector in Germany in aid of Save Wild Tigers, The Born Free Foundation and The Environmental Investigation Agency.
Milner's work has been displayed in museum exhibitions in the UK including: Ripon Cathedral, York Minster, Corinium Museum, Canal Museum, Pontefract Museum, Museum in the Park, as well as installations in Harrods and Whiteley's. Her artworks are held in a number of private collections worldwide, including Blue Marilyn in the collection of Rihanna. The portrait has been widely featured by the global media, it 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 which was guest edited by Rihanna who featured the work in a profile of her favourite things. Blue Amy, 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. The artist’s semi abstract artwork representing under sea volcanoes and life in the ocean depths entitled Hydrothermal Vents is in the collection of Professor Iain Stewart, BBC Broadcaster and head of Department of Earth Sciences at Plymouth University.
Milner’s paintings have been widely featured in the global media including the BBC, BLOUIN ARTINFO, Channel News Asia, Elle, Forbes, Huffington Post Arts, The Observer, Save Virunga, The Telegraph, The Times, Vogue Paris and Vogue India. An in-depth article entitled ‘Artist Claire Milner Addresses Climate Change, Mass Extinction and Pollution’ was featured in Musings Magazine which interviews thought-leaders and artists in the philanthropic and social impact space, published by Susan Rockefeller. Milner’s painting entitled The Disappeared featured in The Observer alongside pioneering artist Judy Chicago’s Create Art for Earth campaign.
In 2024 Claire Milner has again been selected as an Active Member of the Gallery Climate Coalition after selection in 2023 as one of fewer than ten artists worldwide for the inaugural Active Membership, along with several blue-chip galleries, institutions and museums who demonstrated that their organisation has implemented environmental sustainability best practice. She is an Artist Member of the non-profit arts organisation ArtCan and a member of the Association of Illustrators. Click for the artist’s Environmental Responsibility Statement.
STATEMENT
I work in collections fusing classical literature, mythology, science and nature within an art historical context. Environmental references such as climate change and mass extinction have been the central focus of my image making for more than two decades. I depict these lifelong passions of protecting habitats and endangered species, which have become the defining challenge of our time, in a dialogue with art history. The work of wide ranging artists such as Henri Rousseau, Briton Riviere, The Pre-Raphaelites, Pietro Longhi, Frida Khalo, Rubens and many others, are referenced and restaged. Male protagonists are often substituted with my own self portrait or animals, purposefully changing the narrative of the original works by predominantly male artists in order to present a contemporary, environmental and very personal portrayal. My life as an artist is driven by the love of communicating momentous and difficult topics through the international language of art, which is an extraordinary agent for discourse.
At the intersection of abstraction and figuration and spotlighting the revealed, the hidden and the disappeared, the works highlight the human connection to the natural world and simultaneously the impact of human encroachment upon critical ecosystems and species. Eluding immediate digestion and inviting the act of slow-looking, the works condense ideas and memories through multiple layers. Making reference to a way of thinking, signifying both chaos and order, many levels of meanings and discoveries are made with subsequent viewings. The portrayal of animals’ interchanges between metaphoric and literal and continues a wide-ranging history of animal images in art. The impact of humanity is always implicit, even when the human figure is absent or plays a minor role in the composition. The paintings accentuate the uneasy juxtaposition of abundance and loss, contrasting commercial values with environmental ideals as determinants of worth. In a conversation with art history, current topical issues and the viewer, the main content of this work is universal: life and death, giving equal value to paintings that are both aesthetically and environmentally significant.
My inspiration comes from a lifelong love of nature and extensive time spent in Africa, South America and Asia which continues to inform my current collections. My subject matter acts as a portal to explore a variety of mediums. I regularly sample, remix and combine art historical tropes with topical environmental issues, together with my eclectic personal collection of photographs documenting my expeditions. My practice focuses on traditional painting techniques dating back to the Old Masters with a contemporary interpretation. I mix my own oil paints from natural pigments such as iron oxides and ochres from small, family owned quarries where those colour pigments are prevalent in the ground – mainly in France and Italy. These European quarries harvest sustainably and Earth pigments are in abundant supply around the world. They were the main source of colorants for over 100,000 years by all cultures around the globe. Natural earth pigments are the most permanent and archival of any pigment and have excellent/permanent lightfastness. They do not contain fillers, stabilizers, solvents and preservatives. Because of their undiluted purity, these paints have a time-tested durability of thousands of years dating back to cave paintings. The pigment particles are larger and more irregular than synthetic pigments, which allows for more light to pass through them, creating a paint that has a higher refraction-vibrancy. Certified non-toxic with no harm to the environment, these paints have a connection with nature and the earth beneath our feet and are the perfect vehicle for translating the messages inherent within my work. Further techniques include digital and handmade paper collages, created with complex, semi-transparent layers which form the starting point for compositional ideas. Mixed media works often incorporate camouflaged paint skins with printed text and photographic imagery. This positioning of mediums, vocabularies and genres combines cutting-edge digital techniques with older pictorial traditions in a fusion of high art, popular culture and topical themes.
SUSTAINABILITY
ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY STATEMENT
Climate change, ocean pollution, habitat loss and the current rapid rate of extinction have devastating implications as the biggest challenges we face. We must act with urgency to resolve these critical concerns, as our planet is fast approaching irreversible tipping points. Biodiversity forms the web of life that we depend on, it is essential to the healthy functioning of ecosystems around the world and is the result of 4.5 billion years of evolution. Over half of global GDP is dependent on nature, but nature is in crisis. The main driver of biodiversity loss is human activity and climate change is an increasingly important factor which depends on biodiversity as part of the solution, so the two are interlinked. The web of life on this planet is intricately connected. Scientists predict that humanity’s footprint may cause the loss of 50% of all species by the end of the century. Species extinction does not happen in isolation. Humanitarian crises, food insecurity and forced displacement which disproportionately affect the Global South means that we are all racing extinction and we cannot afford to lose.
Floods and uncontrollable wildfires are becoming an expected part of our seasonal calendars and occur on every continent except Antarctica. Most regions experience weather conditions conducive to the outbreak of a wildfire at some point in the year. Wildfires in ecosystems like peatlands and rainforests, which store large amounts of irrecoverable terrestrial carbon, release vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, exacerbating global warming. In this way, wildfires may accelerate the positive feedback loop in the carbon cycle, making it more difficult to halt rising temperatures. The devastating news that in some areas the Amazon is emitting more carbon than it is absorbing highlights why the world must urgently get to grips with the climate crisis and rapidly slash emissions in the 2020s to have a chance of a safe future. The WMO State of the Climate 2024 Update once again issued a Red Alert at the sheer pace of climate change in a single generation, turbo-charged by ever-increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. 2015-2024 is the warmest ten years on record; the loss of ice from glaciers, sea-level rise and ocean heating are accelerating; and extreme weather is wreaking havoc on communities and economies across the world. 2025 was the hottest January on record despite being a La Niña year leading scientists to consider that we may already have entered an accelerated period of global warming. It was 1.75°C above the pre-industrial level and was the 18th month in the last nineteen months for which the global-average surface air temperature was more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level.
The window for action to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, as laid out in the historic COP21 Paris Agreement is rapidly closing.
ARTIVISM
Art does not exist in a vacuum, and now more than ever it is the role of an artist to hold a mirror up to the critical issues of our time, using artwork as a vehicle for a larger purpose. The international language of art is an extraordinary agent for discourse around momentous and difficult topics such as climate change and biodiversity loss. As an industry and as individuals we must act urgently to reduce the impact on the environment of travel, shipping, materials and energy.
I work in collections which represent my own identity and values, collating art, science and nature. Environmental references such as climate change and mass extinction have been the central focus of my image making for more than two decades and these subjects have also been instrumental in shaping my entire life. My work, which was chosen by the organising committee to be exhibited at COP26 to illustrate species extinction and habitat loss, highlights the human connection to the natural world and the simultaneous impact on critical ecosystems and species. To be true to my values I use only Natural Earth Pigments, certified non-toxic with no harm to the environment, these paints have a connection with nature and the earth beneath our feet and are the perfect vehicle for translating the messages inherent within my work. I am committed to creating work that is both aesthetically and environmentally significant and I extend this philosophy to include regularly donating funds raised from the sale of paintings to climate, conservation and environmental organisations. In this capacity my auctioned paintings have raised substantial funds to enable on-the-ground projects around the world, ensuring that my art has a direct connection and a positive effect on the content it speaks about.
GCC ACTIVE MEMBERSHIP
I have been awarded Active Membership of the Gallery Climate Coalition, for the years of 2022 and 2023 by demonstrating that I have implemented environmental sustainability best practice. The Gallery Climate Coalition is an international community of arts organisations working to reduce the sector’s environmental impacts, and I have been a member since March 2021, shortly after its inception. The goal of the GCC is to facilitate a greener and more sustainable commercial art world. The aim is to provide guidelines and the necessary resources to collectively reduce the sector’s carbon footprint by 2030 - in line with the Paris Agreement, and to promote near zero-waste practices. Learn more about GCC here: www.galleryclimatecoalition.org
See the Environmental Responsibility Statement in full.
CARBON REPORTS
ART COLLECTIONS
