PAINTING AND WORKS ON PAPER BY IAN CLARK

1/Dec/2011 - 19/Feb/2011

VENUE: Falkner Gallery

The colour of your heart is your pride and joy

Patterns of meaning
In order to fully appreciate art, it is often necessary to understand the artist’s motivation, inspiration and background.
The exhibition at Falkner Gallery: ‘The colour of your heart is your pride and joy’ by Ian Clark illustrates this clearly.
Ian Clark was born in Kamilaroi lands, North Western NSW where he spent most of his early years. He is a quietly spoken, thoughtful person who dislikes labels. He has recently completed the TAFE Visual Arts course at Bendigo as an adult student during which time he developed his distinctive and powerful painting and printmaking style.
He doesn’t draw, plan or design his canvas: instead he begins painting in one place and lets his story or subject ‘construct itself’. The act of painting for him is often spiritual, a form of prayer or meditation. Sometimes the work is completed to his satisfaction; other times he halts midway, overpaints the work and begins again.
He describes painting as a positive force in his life and states ‘Sometimes I am the kid; constructing again’. He works slowly and methodically in acrylics on canvas depicting stories to do with nature eg ‘Desert Country after Rain’ and his own life and philosophy eg ‘One Red Blood’. The resultant dots and colours pulsate with intense and rhythmic vibrations. They are the spiritual creations of a contemporary artist with a powerful, storytelling heritage.