ABOUT
Claire Vitto is a Brooklyn based artist and designer.
Claire began sculpting faces in the summer of 2023 while attending ITP Camp at NYU. Originally crafted to improve her hand drawing skill, this incidental assignment quickly evolved into an art practice all its own.
Claire holds an M.Arch from UCLA and a BA from USC, where she double majored in American Studies and Film Production. In addition to sculpting, Claire works as a scenic designer.
The name of this project was taken from the sonnet, Ozymandias. As Claire explored the idea of turning these faces into candles, she was amused at the way that burning these little sculptures evoked the epic wear of time referenced in the poem. Most of the burn tests resulted in a “shattered visage” cast off next to the remnants of the candle.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley