R. LANE CLARK
Paintings
Art arises from the tension between earth and spirit, between consciousness and unconsciousness. For both the maker and the viewer the image becomes an intersection between the visible and the invisible.
In my career as an artist over the past 25 years, in which I have lived in the U.S., Switzerland, and Ghana, I have worked in a variety of media including painting, photography, documentary video, clay, stone, and even garden design. I am particularly drawn to materials and processes where “wildness” and “civilization” interact to form imagery that activates the imagination of the viewer and honors the forces of nature.
My work is informed by the experience of living in different cultures and learning other ways of seeing, doing, speaking. I am intrigued by the ways that we bridge differences, and by how images and music can travel across cultures, taking on new meanings and connotations. My work is not only informed by the various artistic movements of the twentieth century but also represents a post-modern visual culture that naturally combines imagery from a variety of people and places, past and present, that I have come to know.
The driving force behind this work is my belief in the evocative power of art, largely a process of seeing into unseen realms. My experience of living in Ghana for several years, among a community practicing Akan traditional religion, enables me to understand my art as “animist,” evoking the spiritual potency in all things. The images arise out of experimentation with materials, color, and texture expressing natural processes. Figures and symbols emerge as an evocation of beings and powers that belong to the timeless dimension of dream and myth. One of the functions of this work is to empower intuitive vision in the viewer. The subject is the human condition. Its “meaning” is located in the mystery.
http://www.rlaneclark.com
In my career as an artist over the past 25 years, in which I have lived in the U.S., Switzerland, and Ghana, I have worked in a variety of media including painting, photography, documentary video, clay, stone, and even garden design. I am particularly drawn to materials and processes where “wildness” and “civilization” interact to form imagery that activates the imagination of the viewer and honors the forces of nature.
My work is informed by the experience of living in different cultures and learning other ways of seeing, doing, speaking. I am intrigued by the ways that we bridge differences, and by how images and music can travel across cultures, taking on new meanings and connotations. My work is not only informed by the various artistic movements of the twentieth century but also represents a post-modern visual culture that naturally combines imagery from a variety of people and places, past and present, that I have come to know.
The driving force behind this work is my belief in the evocative power of art, largely a process of seeing into unseen realms. My experience of living in Ghana for several years, among a community practicing Akan traditional religion, enables me to understand my art as “animist,” evoking the spiritual potency in all things. The images arise out of experimentation with materials, color, and texture expressing natural processes. Figures and symbols emerge as an evocation of beings and powers that belong to the timeless dimension of dream and myth. One of the functions of this work is to empower intuitive vision in the viewer. The subject is the human condition. Its “meaning” is located in the mystery.
http://www.rlaneclark.com