Claire Ong is an Irish artist, based in Newcastle upon Tyne. She explores communication, primarily through textiles, with methods encompassing screen printing, stitch and repurposed fabric. Her work re-examines how political statements are laid bare when they are made permanent and context is removed. The resulting artworks present a modern narrative in a traditionally craft-based medium, playing with repetition, innuendo and layered meanings. She was awarded the inaugural New Light Textile Art Award in 2025; is the winner of 2026/7 North East Emerging Artist Award, and has exhibited widely, including at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and the National Gallery of Scotland.

The works presented in this installation are the result of slow laborious making and the analysis of political speech. The delicate lace-like textiles carry the transcripts of Donald Trump’s twenty-point Gaza Peace Plan and the words of Lynn Boylan, MEP for Dublin spoken in Strasbourg eleven days after the October 10th 2025 Gaza ceasefire announcement. Ong utilises yellow road paint to define spaces within the installation in reference to the delineation of space under the apartheid system imposed upon the Palestinian people. The looped sound of a drone and fake CCTV cameras add to the sense of unease and tension in the space.

Ong’s you will be cancelled considers the exclusion of Palestinian voices from decisions shaping their lives. The column of red lace-like fabric, constructed from more than 10 kilometres of thread, carries the transcript of Donald Trump’s September 2025 twenty-point Gaza peace plan. It appears vibrant and monumental yet is deliberately hollow. Words shift in and out of legibility. Through tensions between beauty and emptiness, visibility and erasure, the work considers political promises, power and absence. 

11 Days takes the words of Lynn Boylan, Member of the European Parliament for Dublin, spoken in Strasbourg 11 days after the October 10th 2025 ceasefire announcement. Ong transforms Boylan’s speech into an intricate textile referencing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh. Its familiar fishing-net and olive-leaf patterns are disrupted: text replaces the nets, while missiles take the place of olive leaves.

More about Claire Ong via https://www.instagram.com/claire_o_studio/