John Clark / Artist
johnclarkcontemporary.com
My interest in painting derives from formal concerns. I love painting itself: color, light, space, movement, shape, form, balance… and so on. But after painting for some time and viewing more and more works of art and experiencing life in general, I paint for additional reasons. I have distinct feelings, passages, and initiations, of which I paint with a desire to affect the viewer; to present them with a sigil or a nondescript symbol that change their being. The cause and effect may be conscious or unconscious, bold or subtle, on an emotional level or on an intellectual level… where-with I view painting, and the world, as an endless variety of possibilities. I primarily work in an abstract, “non-representational” way because people question it or try to figure out “what it is.” My work is what it is. My work is whatever the viewer gets out of it, and maybe it will be some sort of trigger for them. I don’t want to get stuck in a painting ‘style,’ or appreciation, just as I hope the viewer doesn’t have a formula to consult when viewing any artwork. I only care the viewer gives the work a chance to affect their being. The idea that one has inexhaustible possibilities or opportunities to transform or move into is both hopeful and fearful. What I paint are varieties of atmospheres or “worlds” which sometimes envelope visual objects or “selves” which also vary. Some representational visuals such as suspension, floatation, reflection, or the atmospheres that activate these sorts of actions, for example, suggest an unanchored, uncommitted freedom.
