My large-scale work can be viewed from inside and out, exploring the links between organic sculpture and architecture. Such forms include shelters, arbours, arches, tunnels and screens. Many are made with living willow using a variety of coloured stems. These sprout catkins and fresh shoots in the spring, becoming green and leafy in the summer. As they grow and develop over the years, new shoots are either woven in or pruned. I continue to work with nature this way as I constantly learn how it will change my pieces. The smaller objects are also organic forms which are more often designed to be attached to an existing structure, like a wall or a tree. Made with predominantly natural materials and woven into shapes like a nest, cocoon or cone, these suggest functional forms made by or for other creatures.

Other sculptures are made as temporary installations responding to rural, urban or indoor settings using willow, wire and other natural materials such as leather, poplar, bamboo, rattan, rope and feathers. These are often large-scale suspended hoops and swirling lines, like drawings in the air.

Leather and wire are longer lasting media with which I can turn the techniques and forms I have developed over the years into pieces which will remain the same, unlike wood or living willow, which evolve.

You can view my full CV here. (Word Version 27kb)

Press comments on my work...

These are finely woven pieces that explore form and function.
Time Out, October 2003

Is this collaboration any more than a high fashion experiment? Well, yes. Wilks knows her craft, using weaving and binding evolved from traditional techniques ... the best pieces are somewhere between sculpture, architecture and body accessories.
Woven from white and tan leather, with natural leather binding, the pattern dazzles and confuses, a bit like one of Bridget Riley's op-art paintings.
Crafts Magazine, March/April 2004‘

What's hot in the world of interiors ...
Leather guru Bill Amberg has teamed up with willow-weaver-turned-environmental artist Clare Wilks to fashion woven leather vessels that are sculptural as well as funtional
Vogue, November 2003‘

I am amazed at the instant impact of her living-willow structures. Six years ago she made a arbour for me for the Chelsea Flower Show, it sprouted strongly and looked wonderful
Bunny Guinness, Sunday Telegraph, October 2003‘

'Wilks is gradually dotting the map with willow installations, as at Burrowbridge on the River Parrett Trail in Somerset, and on Hampstead Heath in London. There she has planted a screen, which turns a dull wall fronting the Heath into the background for an elegant latticed fantasy.’
Crafts Magazine, July/August 2002

‘Clare's work is in demand’
House and Garden, July 2002

‘Clare weaves living willow branches into graceful, bending shapes; the branches then sprout catkins in the spring, and become green and leafy in summer.’
House and Garden, July 2002

‘Clare is noted for her large-scale architectural features most of which can be entered or walked through’
The Garden, March 2000

‘an artist with a growing international reputation’
The Independent, 22 January 2000

‘her pieces include arboreal walkways and tree-nests in France, a giant hammock made of rope and feathers in Mexico, and a 50 foot dragon on the Salisbury Arts Centre’
Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1999

Willow is quite possibly the most versatile wood in the world, and Clare Wilks is one of the few people to realise its potential’
Homes and Gardens, March 1997

‘Clare Wilks, a young sculptor who specializes in using living materials’
Geoff Hamilton's Paradise Gardens, 1997