Artists Statement

PAINTINGS (Currently on Display) Click on Paintings for Larger Size

Series: From the sublime to the ridiculous
a series of amused observations  

Life is not just “one damn thing after another”; that would imply that there is an order to things - a sense and a sequence. Life is more like a collection of vignettes - an unstructured, unscripted, unprincipled morality play. Its accidental epiphanies and revelations are both incidental and ephemeral and, quite possibly, completely beside the point.

We should stop spending a lot of time thinking about chance, and take refuge and comfort in the possibility that every calamity, every calumny, every catastrophe has its genesis in our own tactical errors. We author our misfortune and we can be proud of it. It may be chaos, but at least we own it.

Cheer up sweetheart #1 All things important are both bitter and sweet. Mixed media, 22x28 - $925 Distrust too The cruelest disappointment is betrayal. Acrylic, 16x16 - $400  I can’t abide Phthalocyanine On being at odds with one’s view of the universe. Acrylic, 16x20 - $500 Levitating beach balls A field of energy signifying nothing. Acrylic, 16x20 - $500 Mr. and Mrs. White on vacation Boredon White found his fellow tourists more amusing than the scenery. His fellow tourists found him better ignored.  Acrylic, 18x24 - $650 Sleight of hand Diplomacy is the art of deception. Acrylic, 24x30 - $1100 There's A Forest In Here Somewhere But I've got to stop looking. Acrylic, 16x20 - $500 The straight shooter He would not allow her to stoop to conquer. Sweet William resists the temptation to be Big Bad Bill. Acrylic, 16x20 - $500

Cruel and unusual PUNishment Not everyone with six toes is a pirate. Not all sisters are nuns. Not everything your mother told you was God’s honest truth. Acrylic, 16x20 - $500 Freud meets Gilbert and Sullivan An operetta of angst. Acrylic, 18x24 - $650 Is anybody listening? Does anybody care? There is no point confessing sins to an indifferent deity. Acrylic, 16x20 - $500 Magda in the garden of eden She was a collapsed catholic, and her inner voices always lobbied for less conscience.  Acrylic, 20x24 - $725 Perry and Fay Together alone. Alone together. Acrylic, 18x28 - $775 The incurable romantic Ricky went to the well once too often. Acrylic, 16x20 - $500 The intellectual After he was blacklisted, Jerome wrote adult screenplays under the pseudonym Ron Chi. Acrylic, 16x20 - $500

Virgin ascension from an American harem Denim temptation and food for the innocent soul. Acrylic, 51x51 - $1950

Carmen The Human Vitamin She's a consequence of, and a remedy for, that which ails me. Mixed Media, 34x34 - $875

Women of substance

The scent of lilacs in the garden at Mac’s Rest.

Acrylic, 16x20 - $550



A Cluster of Stumps

They tangled as they struggled to survive

Acrylic, 14x18 - $400



Stream In The Eastern Townships

Ten minutes climb from the cottage where lunch is being prepared. Aromas and laughter waft through the breeze-cooled foliage.

Acrylic, 18x24 - $650



Sunshower on a Stony Shore

Acrylic, 24"x16"

 

Artist’s statement

I sit,removed and bemused, in the eye of the storm: searching for patterns in the chaos; trying to discern melody in the cacophony; and passing a confused but benign judgment on all I survey.

I notice:

Every soldier on the parade ground has a unique uniform and is spontaneously composing his own march. Ethel Merman is belting out lullabies. Claudine Longet is breathlessly whispering rugby anthems. Somewhere among them my grandfather is savoring his rum toddy before he launches himself into oblivion, where he will join his wife. All is as it should be chez moi.

It occurs to me:

God is a great role model. In the Old Testament he clearly has control issues: nobody could do anything without raising his dander, wrath, righteous outrage. By the New Testament he has come to terms with free will. In fact, he pretty much lets us do what we want. He has come to the realization that we’re going to do it anyway, so why not let us learn by our own mistakes? And so what if we don’t learn from them? That’s Entertainment.

As a consequence:

I feel obliged to unceasingly squint at my life and try to get the joke. It’s my nod to the Master Comedian. My paintings are snapshots from the semi-logical context of dream narratives, striving to capture the incidental nature of my perceptions and absurdity of my fears. Often, they conceal multiple layers of an animated and evolving story. The top layer is simply the most recent freeze-frame of the story. Each underlying painting has informed the one that followed, and imbued it with an intrinsic, totally subjective truth. I know that, if I ever totally awake from my dream, things will make less sense.

I conclude:

If I am going to look for the meaning of life I should at least be paying attention. I’d hate to miss my own epiphany. A photographic memory just makes pictures more important. And this child of orphans is pretty well an orphan himself.

Stephen Clarke

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