Graham Clark - Artist

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LIGHTFAST

By Dr. Sue Roe

Clark’s stylish handling of light is what draws us in, whether he’s evoking the leather interior of a car, the craggy rocks of the Yorkshire Moors, the architectural elegance of a grand hotel or the salty fascination of a landscape. The way he lights his scenes turns them into places of intrigue and fascination.

Though Graham Clark studied graphic design at art college he has never denied being self-taught as a painter. His graphic precision, striking colour combinations and stylish lighting put him in the realm of artists with a strong design sense, inspired by painters such as American Impressionist Ross Sterling Turner, who began his career as a mechanical draftsman in the US Patent Office – though Clark’s vision is undeniably contemporary. It’s the feeling of something unexplained, of a story as yet untold, that’s the special hallmark of Clark’s work. His landscapes often feel as if he’s just stepped ashore, not knowing quite what he’ll find. We wonder what has just happened on the twisting path between the tall trees, in Purple Fields, or in the deserted pagoda, empty of people on a summer’s afternoon, in Magnesia Well, Valley Gardens, Harrogate. That sense of mystery extends to his fascination with nature itself, and takes us to the heart of his vision. A particularly striking example is Farmhouse, Derbyshire, where we just sense that the sudden wash of light, picking out a blue door and a bright, striped wall, will last but a minute before the buildings again blend into the landscape, nestling back into the shelter of the surrounding moors.

Also intriguing are works in which the artist is subtly experimenting, as in Fishing Boat, Staithes, where touches of abstraction in the sea draw the eye to the crisp geometry of the blue and white boat and to the line of pink fenders, which set up a joyful contrast of colour and form and introduce another element, almost a party mood. Light itself is the subject of Alnmouth Beach, where the man and his dog walking the shore are just
shadowy figures within nature’s grand design. The light source seems to be cracking
open the horizon, flooding sea and sky with gloriously unfolding rays of colour.
At the centre of this moody celebration of variegated dusk light is a little shimmering mark, denoting pure light. Clark admires the work of many of the great masters of plein-air painting but his relationship with his materials is also personal, forged from his own experience and very much a product of his own, turbulent story …

In Conversation

SR When was the first time you realized you wanted to paint?

GC I still remember the moment at art college when ‘the lad who was good at drawing’ first realized the tactile feeling of paint. I was working on illustrations for a book of vintage Rolls Royces, painting a 1912 Rolls with a surrey on the top, and I felt myself being drawn right into the sensual fabric of the car. I could smell the button-leather seats. The paint seemed to be leading me right into the sensual materials of what I was painting. It just took me.

SR What was ‘the lad who was good at drawing’ really like?

GC I was a cheeky boy, the likeable rogue. My stepfather kicked me out at sixteen and I lived and worked in hotels for a bit, then I went into the Merchant Navy, which was a crazy, wild adventure, exciting and frightening; I was with people who’d hit first and ask questions later. But I was wowed by the sea and sky every day. We set sail from Antwerp, then sailed the Gulf of Mexico, where at times the sea was like glass. The sunsets were unbelievable, with vibrant colours I’d never seen before. Our first port of call was Miami. Suddenly I could smell the land, the ambiance of it all was overwhelming.

SR Is that what goes into your work – that sense of wonder?

GC Yes, the feeling of being at one with the elements. But there’s a flamboyant, colourful side to my nature as well.

SR What do you want people to feel when they look at your work?

GC I hope they’ll make an association, and their emotions will be stirred. Maybe my work will bring back an important moment, or make them feel more for the actual landscape depicted in the painting. I recently sold a print of a Venetian balcony to a lady who said, ‘it just makes me smile and feel happy’ I like that.

SR In some of your works there are abstract touches – do you think you’ll ever do purely abstract work?

GC Yes I do, I admire work where the form’s not clear but the light and atmosphere come through : where there’s a sense of temperature and ambiance, but no specific form. Abstract artists can have fun with that.

SR Do you have more fun with some media than with others?

GC I try to be as purist as possible. I have a long-standing respect for water-colour, and how it’s been used within the English tradition. But when I paint in acrylic I use palette knives, and they can be more daring and experimental : the outcome can be considerably different. Outcomes also vary, of course, with changes of subject. I want to work with figure, portrait and still-life in the future.

Much of the work Graham Clark has successfully exhibited signals his deep love of the English countryside. His widely admired depiction of the Yorkshire Moors, Brimham Rocks evocative, craggy, expressing the Moors’ inimitable hint of mystery – now hangs in a large country house in Yorkshire; his work has an uncanny way of finding its way back to its homeland. Equally, his paintings have clear global potential, celebrating strong feeling for the local landscape or reminding their owners of home. Clark’s landscapes by no means confine him to the role of English landscape artist. Always ready to broaden his vision and inspired by the challenge of discovering new places, he has recently been painting in Venice and later this year is off to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia looking for new subjects. The lad who ran off to join the Navy is still there in the painter’s soul.

Dr Sue Roe
Art Critic and Author of; ‘The Private Lives of the Impressionists’, ‘Gwen John – A Life’.