Claire Dockray
Claire Dockray, artistically known as Glass Bambi, is a British artist and teacher based in Bali, Indonesia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University, where she studied painting, photography, and film. Alongside her teaching practice, she continues to cultivate the creativity of young artists while maintaining an ever-evolving studio practice of her own.
From childhood, Dockray has been deeply moved by the emotional pull of nostalgia and the fragility of memory. Her artist name, Glass Bambi, pays homage to the delicate glass Bambi ornaments that lived on her grandmother’s shelves, kitsch objects that felt both magical and comforting, now echoing through her work as symbols of tenderness, longing, and time.
Dockray’s paintings blend Pop Art aesthetics with realism and surrealism, drawing inspiration from mid-century photography, 1960s–70s fashion editorials, and cinematic lighting. Through these influences, she constructs dreamlike, dystopian compositions that explore the disconnects of contemporary life. Her work investigates the tension between innocence and experience, the material and the ethereal, the familiar and the uncanny.
Now living and working in Bali, she balances her teaching career with a deepening dedication to her art practice, with the long-term aim and dream of transitioning into a full-time artist. Her work continues to evolve as an ongoing dialogue between memory, identity, and the shifting landscapes of modern existence.
Artist Statement
Across my recent body of work, I have become increasingly fascinated by luminescent forms and glowing figures, using light as a metaphor for spirit, presence, and the quiet resilience of the human heart in an age marked by disconnection. Manifest draws from my own experiences as a single, middle-aged woman navigating the surreal landscape of modern dating, a world that often feels both dystopian and strangely hollow. Through symbolic objects such as the claw machine, glass hearts, and deflated metallic heart balloons, I explore themes of longing, vulnerability, and the hope that persists within the human spirit. The derelict vintage Coney Island setting alludes to fractured memory and the uneasy beauty of nostalgia when seen through the lens of loss. Throughout my collection, the glass hearts and glass animals serve as symbols of fragility, wonder, and the delicate architecture of emotion.
The paintings Glow and Inner Glow continue these investigations through a distinctly cinematic lens. Visually, they draw upon the tension found in films like The Shining, softened by the whimsical balance of Wes Anderson’s palettes and compositions. Their low lighting and radiant bodies articulate an inner beauty, a symbolic illumination of the human spirit, a quiet glow that endures beneath the surface despite life’s setbacks in our increasingly dystopian age.
Through this ongoing series, I merge nostalgic imagery with deeper reflections on identity, emotion, and the unseen spiritual energy that threads human experience together. My work becomes a space where memory, longing, and the contemporary psyche meet, illuminated, vulnerable, yet alive.
https://www.instagram.com/retroartbyclaire/
