Cluett Studied at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and received her masters from the University of Guelph.  She teaches currently at the University of Waterloo.  Following her masters program in Guelph, Cora was invited to participate in the seminal 1996-7 exhibition of young painters, Perspective ’96, at the Art Gallery of Ontario, curated by Jessica Bradley. Her work has been exhibited and is represented in many public galleries and private collections in Canada and abroad.

Cluett layers oil glazes on her canvas intermittently marking the surface in a grid pattern allowing the under painting to show through the glassy surface.

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s curator, Ray Cronin, in his essay for her solo exhibition, Scavenger’s Daughter, writes:

“Cluett’s works are fluid constructs – the results of a series of pours.  Her paintings are made up of multiple glazes, punctuated by the grid as islands dot a lake.  Cluett’s painting style is rooted in her training as a photographer.  The pouring of glazes, the manipulation of the flat surface to distribute the paint, the prodding and poking of the surface as it skins over, all mimic the physical processes she once used for photographic work. Her first paintings, completed while a graduate student at the University of Guelph, were also about surface, though less about colour.  In these works Cluett built up skins that she stamped into, creating text-like patterns that referenced the e-mail texts of emotions.  Kisses, winks and smiles, the emotional short-hand of a busy business day.  The texts have become the grids in the new work, the layers are fewer and more translucent.  In this later work the focus shifts from being on the surface to one aiming through the surface.  In these paintings the artist eschews text and expresses a yearning for light.”

Exhibitions from 2002-2012: on the archived WTG site.