Claire Chambless

Claire Chambless sculpts a terrain where contradictions not only coexist but inform one another. Central to this is her use of dollhouses and the miniature, which serve less as nostalgic childhood objects and toys, but as psychological scaffoldings. By reimagining their interiors and facades, Chambless transforms sculpture into symbolic landscapes of the psyche–spaces where light and shadow, public and private self, merge and transform one another. These tensions are further reflected in her material choices. Found objects blend with handmade and sculpted components, blurring the boundary between what is constructed and what is inherited. Pristine and ideologically uncomplicated worlds are undercut by an undercurrent of corporeality: flesh, bone, and the human weight of lived experience seeping through the cracks of otherwise idealized surrealist forms. Chambless’s exploration is rooted in the formative stages of psychosocial development, when early notions of dichotomies–true and false, good and bad, inside and outside–shape our understanding of reality. Yet, rather than seeking clarity or singular truths, Chambless invites viewers to inhabit complexity, opacity, and the porous boundaries between self and environment in an approach that feels increasingly urgent in the hyperreal landscape of contemporary life.

Claire Chambless (b.1989 Houston, TX) lives and works in Los Angeles. She is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture. Chambless received her BA at Davidson College and her MFA at the California Institute of the Arts. Recent solo exhibitions include Spleen, Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA (2025); Player, Non-Player, Frieze Projects commissioned by the Art Production Fund, Frieze, Los Angeles, CA (2025); ROLE PLAY, Carlye Packer, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Gird Your Loins, The End Project Space, Atlanta, GA (2023); ENDGAME, Oolong Gallery, Solana Beach Del Mar, CA (2023); and America, America, Baroque, Baroque, Office Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2023). Recent group exhibitions include Directionless, curated by Rashid Johnson, Hauser & Wirth, Menorca, Spain (2026); Heavy Metal, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2026); Model World, curated by Elliott Hundley, Tierra del Sol Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2026); The “Laissez-Faire” Doctrine, Nabuzardan, Paris, France (2026); and SPUCKELORE!, Sliphouse, New York, NY (2026). Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA; among others.