Moore Gallery introduces Ann Clarke to Hamilton
By Grace Inglis, The Hamilton Spectator Nov.1986
Prairie Province artists made their own lively scene in the 1970’s and non-objective painter Ann Clarke attracted a lot of critical acclaim as a vital force there and a significant abstract painter of the generation following Lochhead and Perehudoff.
Two years ago she moved from Edmonton to Toronto, and her paintings since that move – featured at the Moore Gallery this month – introduce her to Hamilton.
Edmonton is a chapter closed, she says. She needs to expand her market, explore contacts east, be closer to her elderly mother in her native England.
She has probably brought something of Alberta with her, however. “The light there is wonderful, as clear and pure as the south of France”, she says. “The foothills begin there, and you can take wonderful hikes. I taught at Banff in the summers, and made drawings and paintings of the mountains sometimes. I just soaked it all up like a sponge, and some of it does come out in my work”. The fellowship and artistic activities were good too. I arrived there at the right time, in 1968, and I really learned more to be a non-objective painter in Edmonton”
Her work is open, intuitive, moody. Most paintings have a coloured ground brushed thinly onto unstretched canvas laid on the studio floor, with a number of markings, like pictigraphs, painted onto them, as well as colour glazes laid over top. The final layers are swished on with a squeegee into patterns and ridges, sometimes in sharp relief. The surface is not as heavy as it looks, she says. “It’s just gel and acrylic mixed with vermiculite, and it’s quite flexible. I can even roll these canvases”.
The trick is to get the balance between surface and depth, to allow a glow to show through and around the heavy, viscous top layer of paint and bind the whole together, and Clarke is good at this. Mood is expressed as much by the structure of the paintings as by their colour and surface turbulence.
Some paintings are as heavy as a November sky, as dark, dense and lowering. Others seem to snatch blues and lemons and azalea pinks and tangerine out of the tropics and melt them deliciously together into an open, dancing surface.
“Everything I see, the way I happen to feel, all go into my paintings”, she says. This show covers a whole spectrum of mood; you can be drawn to or react against these works on a purely emotional basis.
Clarke’s work over the 18 years since she emigrated to Canada from England, has gone through many changes. Among her mentors in the past were Clement Greenberg and Jack Bush, who helped her to gain faith in her own intuition with paint. She has worked with a number of images and effects, as have her contemporaries like David Bolduc and Paul Sloggett. She works with a gusto that may come partly from a good foundation schooling, determination and optimism developed through long Alberta winters, and the drive to simply paint.
If there is something to criticize, it may be the looseness of some works and their resulting blandness. It is a danger when flowing motion and rich working of material are the concern. Rhythm is important, and it is here, but the images that used to provide a focus in her work are either gone or hidden. Overall surface pattern dominates. The fine effects when elements are wove together most tightly, as in Arch Angel, which is beautifully worked, or Kore, which incorporates images of spirals and other patterns, indicate the advantages of this method of working, however.
Ann Clarke grew up in North London, and studied art at the Slade school. She won a travel scholarship to Italy in 1963, and her career since emigrating to Alberta has included several Canada Council grants, a major provincial award, many teaching assignments and inclusion in all the major group shows out west. She has had solo shows across the country and a number of critical articles.
By Grace Inglis, The Hamilton Spectator Nov.1986
Prairie Province artists made their own lively scene in the 1970’s and non-objective painter Ann Clarke attracted a lot of critical acclaim as a vital force there and a significant abstract painter of the generation following Lochhead and Perehudoff.
Two years ago she moved from Edmonton to Toronto, and her paintings since that move – featured at the Moore Gallery this month – introduce her to Hamilton.
Edmonton is a chapter closed, she says. She needs to expand her market, explore contacts east, be closer to her elderly mother in her native England.
She has probably brought something of Alberta with her, however. “The light there is wonderful, as clear and pure as the south of France”, she says. “The foothills begin there, and you can take wonderful hikes. I taught at Banff in the summers, and made drawings and paintings of the mountains sometimes. I just soaked it all up like a sponge, and some of it does come out in my work”. The fellowship and artistic activities were good too. I arrived there at the right time, in 1968, and I really learned more to be a non-objective painter in Edmonton”
Her work is open, intuitive, moody. Most paintings have a coloured ground brushed thinly onto unstretched canvas laid on the studio floor, with a number of markings, like pictigraphs, painted onto them, as well as colour glazes laid over top. The final layers are swished on with a squeegee into patterns and ridges, sometimes in sharp relief. The surface is not as heavy as it looks, she says. “It’s just gel and acrylic mixed with vermiculite, and it’s quite flexible. I can even roll these canvases”.
The trick is to get the balance between surface and depth, to allow a glow to show through and around the heavy, viscous top layer of paint and bind the whole together, and Clarke is good at this. Mood is expressed as much by the structure of the paintings as by their colour and surface turbulence.
Some paintings are as heavy as a November sky, as dark, dense and lowering. Others seem to snatch blues and lemons and azalea pinks and tangerine out of the tropics and melt them deliciously together into an open, dancing surface.
“Everything I see, the way I happen to feel, all go into my paintings”, she says. This show covers a whole spectrum of mood; you can be drawn to or react against these works on a purely emotional basis.
Clarke’s work over the 18 years since she emigrated to Canada from England, has gone through many changes. Among her mentors in the past were Clement Greenberg and Jack Bush, who helped her to gain faith in her own intuition with paint. She has worked with a number of images and effects, as have her contemporaries like David Bolduc and Paul Sloggett. She works with a gusto that may come partly from a good foundation schooling, determination and optimism developed through long Alberta winters, and the drive to simply paint.
If there is something to criticize, it may be the looseness of some works and their resulting blandness. It is a danger when flowing motion and rich working of material are the concern. Rhythm is important, and it is here, but the images that used to provide a focus in her work are either gone or hidden. Overall surface pattern dominates. The fine effects when elements are wove together most tightly, as in Arch Angel, which is beautifully worked, or Kore, which incorporates images of spirals and other patterns, indicate the advantages of this method of working, however.
Ann Clarke grew up in North London, and studied art at the Slade school. She won a travel scholarship to Italy in 1963, and her career since emigrating to Alberta has included several Canada Council grants, a major provincial award, many teaching assignments and inclusion in all the major group shows out west. She has had solo shows across the country and a number of critical articles.