Angela Clarke
Artist
ARTIST STATEMENT
My art practise is one that has evolved to enable me to work on several series of drawings in different media as well as oil paintings, watercolour and prints at any one time. My current work explores the impact of place on the mind and my creative practise, exploring it's colours, forms and ambiance through the abstract response to materials such as watercolour in both their intensity and fluidity. An experimental approach has always underpinned and sometimes has been applied at different times to develop my main painting practise, it particularly informs my decision making in the physicality of the work as well as the exploration of theoretical and literary ideas. I enjoy the unpredictability inherent in the fluidity of both oil paint and watercolour which demands a response, a gesture in any appropriate scale. As well as the time it allows for thought while it dries. There is an inevitable push and pull of marks, tones and colour that sometimes obscure and create areas anew and it’s this that can creates a depth within the work. I often use the challenge of a limited and tonal palette to create a restriction or boundary to work within, as well as the designated square format of the drawings and canvasses.
It would seem that my artistic journey has been to explore the connection between the inner world and my materials of choice for a long time now. Each painting and drawing are part of a larger continuum rooted in the gesture and the mark.
As you will see I tend to work in series of works in both my Drawings and Paintings:
'Postcards to Cornwall' is a new folio of small watercolours on A4 watercolour paper inspired by a recent journey there this Summer. It was a totally inspirational experience which I started to work on whilst there. It's my latest obsession and the first time that 'place' has had such an important influence on my work. So much so that I'm already looking into the possibility of returning there next year, as well as other coastal areas.
'Intermission' This is a new series of watercolours with a focus on blue and it's posible tones it explores the meticulous mark alongside the more watery possibilities of the paint.
'Before the Light Fades' is an ongoing series of small square drawings in oil pastel working in the Golden hour of early evening which began August 2021.
'At the End of the Day' is an ongoing series of drawn explorations of colour in colour pencil created at a moment in time in the awareness of the fading evening light across the seasons. It has its own special quality, which I have always loved and which I have been using as a starting point since 2021.
'Passing the Time' is a folio of experiments which I began in 2021 to feed other work and be out of those boxes of restraint worked on in them. I continue to experiment under this umberella today on small square formats.
'While there is still time' began as a personal response to the global pandemic experience employing a new medium of watercolour as well as separately in oil pastel, to explore the conscious state during lockdown and isolation. It has developed since to continue to explore both mediums as a conduit for exploration of colour, tone, scale and making.
'In the Deep' a series of five square deep canvasses 5'x5'exploring the deep tonal shifts within a dark green, blue and umber palette 2019. These colours and tones are also revisited in watercolour, lightfast pencil and oil pastel 2023 onwards.
'REVERIE' series 1-6 is looking at the moments in time of unconscious thought, a dreamlike state and referencing 'The Poetics of Reverie by Gaston Bachelard. It explores the possibilities of reverie to offer a response for the conscious mind and to open up the imagination to enable the poetic image and visual language. There are a number of painted Series from 1 - 5 exploring the tonal changes of colour in works on paper which have led to a series of canvasses.
'The Song of the SIRENS' explores inspiration from literature. Homer's 'The Odyssey' introduces us to the Sirens. Their names have been used as a catalyst for calligraphic opportunities for form and colour within the paintings. It is an opportunity to explore possibilities for a lyrical abstraction located in the Mediterranean.
Other explorations of long term current practise sometimes returned to have involved a large scale directional drawn response of 'Vertices 3' and an ongoing drawn scroll' Panorama of Love and Grief'. Smaller drawings in graphite and pastel are explored in a number of drawings titled 'Pause' where graphite tonality records time and response to the trauma of deep emotional experience of grief, across all three projects.
A number of strategies have been employed, the results of which have been regularly exhibited in galleries, and public spaces as Murals resulting from residencies at schools and Youth clubs and finally as commissions and publication.
Biography
Studied MA at Middlesex University in 2002.
Angela Clarke has exhibited at various Galleries throughout the UK and her work is held in a number of private collections around the world
Solo Exhibitions
2022 Open studio - At the End of the Day 2022, Stoke Newington,London
2020 While there is still time at The Open Window Gallery, London
2015 The Song of the Sirens at The Beaucatcher Salon, London
2011 Retro Retrospective at The Fox Reformed, London.
1995 Working Drawings at The Fox Reformed, London.
1994 Intimate Gardens at The Stoke Newington Festival, London.
1991 Heads in Print at Patisserie Bliss, London.
Selected Group exhibitions
2018 Group show of work by Students and Tutors Ravensbourne
University, North Greenwich, Peninsular, London. 2016 'Language in Bloomsbury' Bloomsbury Literary Festival,
London.
2007-8 Pages The Notice Gallery, London.
2006-7 The Winter Salon The Hackney Museum, London.
2006 Open Studios The Old Sea Cadets Building, London
2003 Holds and Charms Middlesex University Gallery, London.
INTOXICANT The Limehouse Arts Foundation (LAF), London.
2002 Ma Untitled Art House Gallery, London.
1990 Xantippe The Crypt Gallery, London.
1989 XantippeThe Orangery Gallery, London.
1988 Paintings, Drawings and Prints The Cahill and Grebler Gallery,
London.
Womens Artist's Diary (original work) The Kings Manor Gallery,
The University of york.
Watching You Watching Me The Small Mansions Art Centre,
London.
1986 Women's Eye IV The Hornsey Gallery, London.
1985 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition London.
Women's Eye II The Women's Eye Gallery, London.
Heads Women's Eye Gallery, London.
1984 Works on Paper(two woman show) The Almeida Theatre London.
Art in Tower Hamlets Open Exhibition1984, London.
Publications
1988 The Women's Artists Diary.
Artist in Residence
2003-5 Lilian Baylis Secondary School, Lambeth, London.
Calveston Primary School,Newham, London.
1991 William Patten Primary School, Stoke Newington, London.