The liquid essence of watercolour in the ‘Vespers’ series (2019), is reminiscent of the transilluminating qualities of his expertise in stained glass. At the first glance Vespers seems to be a series of poppies, with thin green lines and vivid splashes of red clustering on a blank background. Merging form and abstraction through interactions with light and colour, brings the poppies in a state of constant transformation. Through Clarke’s skilful hand, this medium captures the flowers’ feeling of diaphanous membrane.
“I tried to see if I could capture not so much how a poppy looks, but that feeling that they have. Sometimes it’s one of very delicately balancing their beauty on the top of those tender, tender stems — the way the stems drip with great speed out of the flower down to the ground, and you don’t see how one could hold them up until you happen to touch a poppy, and it’s like luminous gossamer. No textile company could approach it’ – Brian Clarke, 2021
Watercolour on Velin Arches
Signed and dated.
, is reminiscent of the transilluminating qualities of his expertise in stained glass. At the first glance Vespers seems to be a series of poppies, with thin green lines and vivid splashes of red clustering on a blank background. Merging form and abstraction through interactions with […]){kind=link}