Michael Clarence

Website: http://www.michaelclarence.com

Email: michaelclarence@gmail.com

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Statement

My work explores contemporary figuration and ideas of representation within painting. Throughout a loose but not exclusive strategy of including people, tables, things, rooms, and pools, I am very much engaged with the act of painting to explore and exploit its material potential and the nature and form of the medium.

Imagery within the work is generated from a variety of sources including photography, TV, film, drawings, paintings and memories. Photographs are collected daily in an almost hoarder-like manner, the selection process is instinctive but without boundaries which provides an infinite number of possibilities to work from. The ideas are edited and distilled into compositions of figure, space and texture amongst many other painterly concerns. Always loosely autobiographical however, the work references significant areas of my life, from the reality of domestic and family life to ideas surrounding sexuality, working in hospitality and the visualised dream of a slightly different existence.

It is within the process of making, the idea of permanency of material and memory are explored as paint is often applied then removed in equal measure. It is throughout this dynamic exchange between the fixedness of the material and the moment of the image that seems to garner the most interest. Much of the work is generated through a series of experiments which in some manner give way to the image.

The story or narrative here is at its most potent, yet also most vulnerable as the conjecture of material and idea confabulate to produce new realities, narratives and experience.

Biography

Michael Clarence was born in 1979 and trained at both the Glasgow School of Art and Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. Having studied in both the Sculpture and Environmental Art and Painting departments, Clarence’s work encompasses a diverse practice which includes drawing, painting, ceramics and sculptural installation. Regardless of material, Clarence’s work is concerned with the interrogation and experimentation of these materials and the push and pull of such to achieve desired outcomes. Over the past four years, Clarence has developed a body of work depicting the figure. His brightly coloured paintings slip in and out of abstraction using a combination of frenetic mark-making and flat colour. He lives and works in Glasgow where he is a member of the Glasgow Independent Studios.

instagram: @michaeljohnclarence
https://www.instagram.com/michaeljohnclarence/

CV

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