Michael Clarence
Michael Clarence’s 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, Michael is 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 with a selection process which is instinctive and without boundaries - this provides an infinite number of possibilities to work from. Always loosely autobiographical however, the work references significant areas of Clarence’s 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.
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.
Check out Michael’s work below!
