Such a Cliché

Claire Frances Spaulding

December 6 - 28, 2025

It’s three o’clock in the morning. 

It’s always three o’clock in the morning. 

Insomnia thrives in this quiet space of minutes passing by. Anxiety slowing down the clockwork for me to dwell between the seconds. I count my wits instead of sheep – a futile attempt to fall back to sleep. Why do comebacks sound best when they’re whispered in the dark?

Such a Cliché explores self-doubt through femme aesthetics and kitsch intentions. Banners feature late-night musings of shoulda, woulda, coulda – a poetics of trope and trepidation.

Hand-stitched embellishments and soft sculptural forms highlight a balance of high and low where technique is both balm and bane. Such a Cliché is a vulnerable coming-of-age through material.

Claire Frances Spaulding (b. 1995) is a Portland-based creative that is joyfully distracted by kitsch, aesthetic theory, and ecology. Her studio practice focuses on soft sculptural, multimedia artworks. A self-identifying “Kitsch Bitch”, Spaulding embraces an empathy for plastic and the permanence of polymers towards a tchotchke futurity that will outlast us all.

@clairefrancesstudio