Corniche: Recent Work by Ann Clarke. Exhibition at ArtsPlace, Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, Sept.-Dec. 2011.
Essay by Dr. Kristy A.Holmes
For over forty years, Ann Clarke has remained committed to an artistic practice firmly rooted in modernist abstraction. While many scholars and art critics were quick to proclaim the “death” of painting but the mid-1970s, Clarke’s large body of work is proof that such proclamations were not only premature, but also unfounded. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries modernist painting has, in fact, showed no signs of deyerioration although it has certainly evolved from its post -World War II beginnings. Few artists have remained so committed to the evolution of painting as Clarke, and her work continues to advance both formal and conceptual aspects of the medium to new and innovative heights.
Clarke’s most recent work, completed in Thunder Bay, Ontario and Twillingate, Newfoundland, reveals her continued enthusiasm and passion for the more formal aspects of painting, such as colour, line, and texture, as well as her new fascination with the ways in which twenty-first century technologies have allowed for the visualization of previously unknow entities, such as the molecular structure of DNA, microscopic life forms (the algae, spirogyra, for example), and the various galactic bodies that make up the cosmos. Clarke translates her interest in these things by reducing their image down to its simplest form – the intricate spiraling filaments of spirogyra, for example, become geometric blocks of intense colour on her canvases. Works sucj as Frequency Wave (2010) and Light Oscillation (2010) feature these abstracted spiraling forms that recall their natural origins but have now been carefully rendered in modernist forms. Clarke sets these images on a completely abstracted background, which not only references the duality of nature versus culture, but also symbolically juxtaposes twenty-first century visual interests with those of the twentieth century.
One of Clarke’s other recent interests is the way in which shape and colour work to play with, and subvert, the seemingly natural way that we see. Abstraction is particularly conducive to this play as the focus on colour and form can be easily manipulated in order to alter our perceptive creating different optical illusions. Works such as Missing Corners (2010) and Rhododendron (2009) exemplify Clarke’s interest in using colour and geometric forms to create such illusions. The jarring contrast between the earth-toned greens and browns used in the background, with the bold, flat and bright colours of the geometric forms render these cubed nuclei as the focal point of the works. As viewers, we are consequently forced to contemplate the cubed forms and the longer one looks, the more they seem to change and morph. Clarke’s careful mixing of her pigments, her cautious handling of paint, and her subtle use of shading, suggest her express intent to have viewers pay attention to the experience of looking and delight in the surprise of seeing something that they intitially did not.
These works serve as a visual reminder of where artistic production has come from and the endless possibilities of its future. While this recent body of Clarke’s work reveals her interest in new technologies of visualization, her commitment to the medium of painting and modernist aesthetics remains unwavering.
Dr. Kristy A. Holmes is Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Visual Arts at Lakehead University, Thunder bay, Ontario, Canada.
Essay by Dr. Kristy A.Holmes
For over forty years, Ann Clarke has remained committed to an artistic practice firmly rooted in modernist abstraction. While many scholars and art critics were quick to proclaim the “death” of painting but the mid-1970s, Clarke’s large body of work is proof that such proclamations were not only premature, but also unfounded. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries modernist painting has, in fact, showed no signs of deyerioration although it has certainly evolved from its post -World War II beginnings. Few artists have remained so committed to the evolution of painting as Clarke, and her work continues to advance both formal and conceptual aspects of the medium to new and innovative heights.
Clarke’s most recent work, completed in Thunder Bay, Ontario and Twillingate, Newfoundland, reveals her continued enthusiasm and passion for the more formal aspects of painting, such as colour, line, and texture, as well as her new fascination with the ways in which twenty-first century technologies have allowed for the visualization of previously unknow entities, such as the molecular structure of DNA, microscopic life forms (the algae, spirogyra, for example), and the various galactic bodies that make up the cosmos. Clarke translates her interest in these things by reducing their image down to its simplest form – the intricate spiraling filaments of spirogyra, for example, become geometric blocks of intense colour on her canvases. Works sucj as Frequency Wave (2010) and Light Oscillation (2010) feature these abstracted spiraling forms that recall their natural origins but have now been carefully rendered in modernist forms. Clarke sets these images on a completely abstracted background, which not only references the duality of nature versus culture, but also symbolically juxtaposes twenty-first century visual interests with those of the twentieth century.
One of Clarke’s other recent interests is the way in which shape and colour work to play with, and subvert, the seemingly natural way that we see. Abstraction is particularly conducive to this play as the focus on colour and form can be easily manipulated in order to alter our perceptive creating different optical illusions. Works such as Missing Corners (2010) and Rhododendron (2009) exemplify Clarke’s interest in using colour and geometric forms to create such illusions. The jarring contrast between the earth-toned greens and browns used in the background, with the bold, flat and bright colours of the geometric forms render these cubed nuclei as the focal point of the works. As viewers, we are consequently forced to contemplate the cubed forms and the longer one looks, the more they seem to change and morph. Clarke’s careful mixing of her pigments, her cautious handling of paint, and her subtle use of shading, suggest her express intent to have viewers pay attention to the experience of looking and delight in the surprise of seeing something that they intitially did not.
These works serve as a visual reminder of where artistic production has come from and the endless possibilities of its future. While this recent body of Clarke’s work reveals her interest in new technologies of visualization, her commitment to the medium of painting and modernist aesthetics remains unwavering.
Dr. Kristy A. Holmes is Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Visual Arts at Lakehead University, Thunder bay, Ontario, Canada.