Kevin P Clarke
Wooden Paradigm Number Two
Cypress and Walnut
48" x 48" x 48"
2009
Kevin P Clarke
Wooden Paradigm Number One
Reclaimed Douglas Fir
33" x 36" x 48"
2009
Kevin P Clarke
Block of Wood
Graphite On Paper
19" x 24"
2009
Kevin P Clarke
Mountain
Graphite On Paper
19" x 24"
2000
My work is rooted in a common departure point: I start by defining a unit while recognizing it is a necessary but impossible occurrence. From there I combine it with other units so that the space between can define the system and the relationship of the parts. The hidden, the extra element which creates gestalt in stasis and synergy in action, is what I try to elevate to a higher level of awareness than the material, or type of mark, I use to articulate a concept. Like digital aberration from a jpeg expanded past it’s intended size, I take a concept and try to present it clearly before it has been expanded, as though the aberrations are intrinsic, and dynamic, even if not readily visible.
In my series Wooden Paradigms I create a system to confuse it. Each piece of wood has been transformed into a standardized unit referencing its origin as an element within a system for building. I'm trying to confound the system of assemblage which creates most architectural space- the right angle and it's divisors, 45, 22.5 etc. The resulting assemblages looks more like piles of randomly placed boards, or fractals, than edifice. The history of the material is as important as how it is put together. The sculptures are left unpainted so that the annual growth rings reference the moment in time when the material was living and I leave the nail holes to show this may be the second incarnation as a material for building.
My graphite drawings, the Interstitial Series, are patchwork quilts of marks where each mark is a collection of lines relative to each other and the gaps between them; a unit that is a collection of smaller units. Each mark is a group of parallel lines and the spaces between them. I'm trying to articulate flatness and depth, and pattern and its interruption, in the same gesture. I am inspired by the pattern of wood grain and the notion of fabric as a pliable plane that is a collection of lines. These elements, representing time and the potential to bend space are born of the most elemental form, the single line. I revere the simplicity of a line while confounding its role within a regular order. It is the interstitial space, the space between lines, and the absence of information that makes space for lines to become contours. And it is the negative space surrounding the marks that creates a dialogue between what is there and what is not.
I define art as lying in the space between signifier and signified, that there is an irrecoverable origin in every sign- that the space between the keystone of all images, the mental image, and that which is depicted, is the fruit and ferment of aesthetic experience.