The Art Department is pleased to announce that Claire Jorgensen has joined our roster of artists. As a multimedia artist with a focus on painting and collage, Claire thoughtfully explores notions of self-identity by employing distortion to depict nuanced emotion in her subjects.

Education and Awards

Jorgensen is a BFA (Honours) graduate from the University of Victoria, a program that culminated in her 2024 BFA Grad Show, Silver Bullets. Her academic background includes an international exchange with first-class standing at Newcastle University in the UK.

Her practice has been noted through several awards, including the 2026 Victoria Visual Art Legacy Society Award and the Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award. These honors reflect her focus on research-based art practice, exploring themes of identity.

Notable Commissions

Jorgensen’s CV includes commissioned works for the University of Victoria, where she has translated institutional themes into visual projects:

• A Dream of Vitality (2024): A mural for the Island Medical Program lobby. This project received the Community Impact Award for its contribution to the University's community.
• Scenes of Knowledge (2022): An Equity Action Plan commission involving arts-based responses to themes of equity, human rights, and inclusion.
• Mural Coordination: She also served as the Student Coordinator for the Taqsiqtuut Indigenous Research Creation Lab mural project under the mentorship of Dr. Heather Igloliorte.

Reality and Representation

Jorgensen's practice uses portraiture to explore the complex space between reality and representation, challenging conventional notions of self-identity. Working on large-scale canvases, she employs high-chromatic, contrasting colours to depict her subjects. For her latest series, she developed a distinctive process: working from her foundational collage practice, she synthesized analog source materials (such as found photography, family photos, and self-portraits) with small-data AI. Her experimentations with AI examined the relationship between person and technology: the interplay between how humans visibly process emotions and AI’s interpretation of those emotions. The resulting distorted, yet familiar-in-likeness, portraits serve as the conceptual foundation for her paintings. Originally, this work stemmed from an exploration of personal grief, but it has since evolved to portray the fragmentation of the self, offering an investigation of the complexities and contradictions of emotion and identity. Jorgensen argues that while contemporary media often offers curated, static views of identity, humanity lies in the constant change of the face, body, and psyche, like the micro-expressions seen in moments of pain or elation. By capturing this multi-faceted nature, her work moves closer to the reality of the human condition than filtered, filmic portrayals. Her paintings are thus understood as simulacrums of identity and self, inherently distorted yet paradoxically providing a concrete depiction of the abstract self.

Looking Forward

Jorgensen is currently preparing for upcoming solo exhibitions at the FiftyFifty Arts Collective and Little Fernwood Gallery in late 2026, followed by a solo show at Xchanges Gallery in July 2027.

We look forward to supporting her as she continues to explore the human form and identity through her practice. Please join us in welcoming Claire Jorgensen to the TAD family.