During the past 10 years, Marischa Slusarski and Claire Barron have collaborated on three continents, Asia, America and Europe.
In 1996, their initial art collaboration was exhibited at Utopia Gallery in Bangkok, Thailand, and achieved "Show of the Year" in Bangkok Metro Magazine.
In the year 2000, Marischa moved to London to collaborate with Claire on a body of mixed-media, clay sculptures and photographic work that captured taxidermy forms and a lumpy blob of a nation coexisting in a dreamy desert landscape - a sinister and humorous take on the human condition. Their large-format color photographs of these dioramas reminiscent of playtime perversions were exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in London and the U.S.
While in London, they helped to create new pathways for emerging artists to realize their work, founding "Underbelly" in London’s Brick Lane gallery district, presenting live performances, video and film festivals, and site-specific installations.
In 2004, Marischa and Claire conceived and photographed "Feral", a study of the human animal. These new works haunt with their animal/human amalgamations and subsequent implications set in painterly landscapes across the U.S.A. The beastly acts portray the metamorphosis of the human spirit. Biting and bucolically beautiful at the same time, this series has a strange timely, cynical and humorous message.
Claire Barron is an international journalist and photojournalist as well as a fine art photographer who has exhibited in Australia, England and America. She has worked on magazines, radio, TV and newspapers. Marischa Slusarski has pursued a successful career as a gallery artist, exhibiting paintings and photography in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Her work is represented in many private, public and institutional collections and has been written about in numerous publications. Early in her artistic career,she collaborated with John Goss on the NEA funded remake of "Forbidden Planet," shown at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica and founded "The International Foundation of Body Painters, " whose performance art team worked in Hollywood nightclubs including the legendary "Water the Bush." She has worked as a consulting art director on live action films and designed a monster for a horror film. Her paintings have been featured in film, television and rock concert set design. Last year she art directed "Corporeal Adornments," contributing the body parts for a theater dance production at Colorado State University, and set designed the "The Half Moon of Serenity", a dance production that played across the US. A children's toy based on her creature designs was under consideration for production by Mattel and Spinmaster. In addition, last year, Marischa was nominated as one of 300 artists across the US, for the new USA Artists Grants Foundation sponsored by the Ford Foundation. She currently spends her time at her Venice studio painting like a bat out of hell for upcoming exhibitions.