FROM THE AEGEAN TO THE ARCTIC A Catalog of Paintings by Marcia Clark 2019 - 2021
nd (right) zigzag on the facing page, looking down into a tiny street hitectural CTION klion, was one of a group of studies I did from the upstairs terrace of kos Residency. The Lakkos Artists Residency is in one of the poorer ctural of Heraklion. Its director, Mathew Halpin, invites his resident artists reet murals intended for the local community, and that was the lure ught me to Crete. I had recently completed a mural on a shipping er for a Children's Home in Greenland and felt that this project be somewhat related. You see the Greenland mural on a path as you ch the Home and the painted image reflects back the surrounding pe. The new mural (above) does something similar.
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It led from the cathedral in Fira on a wide avenue, down flights of steps, through narrow streets, and along a footpath to the little church of St. Minas that was being consecrated. The experience was unforgettable. It also made me very aware of how a group of people when moving through it, are a force that can define a space. The people in this painting were climbing up to the remains of a 16th century Venetian fortress on the island of Gramvousa, and they seemed to merge with the rocky landscape as they climbed. The trajectory in the painting rises from left to right, and I had to hold myself back from more fully defining the climbers as I wanted them to continue to meld with their environment. The visit to Gramvousa was on my return to Crete in 2019, a year after the residency in Heraklion. A residency in Italy at ACI in Corciano completed this stay in the Mediterranean. While there, a friend from the residency (Roberta Staat) and I rented a car and drove to Siena. It was a city I had visited over fifty years before.
was quite excited to be able to return to see Ambrogio Lorenzetti's fresco, gory of Good and Bad Government, at the Palazzo Publico, in the main Lorenzetti's portrayal of Siena in the fresco appears to mirror the town, fically changed since the 14th century. -
spot we discovered when walking back to our B&B from the Piazza del Campo, the main square.
toward the street beyond held Roberta's attention, while I was o the corner and was following the trajectories of two streets at
e study had to be done quicky as it was growing dark. It became iration for paintings that followed once I returned home. Those to take forever as I strove for the very special reflected light cast eddish stone in the streets and from the architecture. However, ovid made international travel impossible, there was no recourse eep painting.
cataclysmic eruption affected the entire Mediterranean with great tsunamis that also destroyed much of the coast of Crete. These events are thought to have led to the demise of the Minoan civilization, remnants of which can be seen at various sites. Above is a satellite image of Santorini showing the caldera, or at least the watery area it occupies. The eruption, or perhaps successive eruptions, sheared off much of Santorini's landmass, leaving a crescent shape of cliffs at the edge of the caldera that had sunk into the sea, small islands surrounding its basin.
illage sitting on top of the cliffs with a switchback path down to the sea. urprised to find that the island was twenty-nine miles long and that .
My last day in Santorini, I was sitting at a cafe in Oia, a charming town on the cliffs at the north end of the island. I had just missed the bus to Amoudi, the tiny port below. However, the cafe sat at the edge of a stairway cut into the cliffs leading down to it. Noticing some foot traffic, I decided to walk those endless steps down to the port, occasionally making way for the donkey traffic and getting slapped once or twice by the flick of a donkey's tail. When I finally reached the port, I found myself in front of a small boat rental office. This seemed serendipitous as my hope had been to recapture the amazing view of Oia - with its domed churches and whitewashed dwellings perched above distinctive red stone cliffs - that I had seen on a tour boat on one of my first days on the island. After resting a bit, I rented one of the boats and was able to go on my own private photo tour of the coastline, traveling from Amoudi to the main port, several miles away. The painting on the facing page was done from a study in front of the office, which sat right at the edge of the water. I think it conveys the steep, circuitous path I would have had to negotiate had I walked back up those many steps to the top.
in Santorini. a path to the upper village in Pyrgos which lay five and yrgos #1, 2019,On oil on miles the south, I was particularly struck by the juxtaposition of a church m 8 xto11 inches dome rose imposingly above me, with an adjacent courtyard that was well my eye level. I did a number of pencil sketches of this, as well as a study ainting on a small piece of aluminum flashing I had with me. Not satisfied, ed to the spot a year later. The juxtapositions in all my studies seemed too ious to match the experience. The mixed media piece on the facing page ollages photo with painting was probably the most successful in conveying and the down of my subject, suggesting the dichotomy, or divergence that erested me.
anchor punctuating the view. Along with the tiny islands they marked ries and extent in an otherwise boundless expanse. How to deal with y expanse on a two dimensional surface without flattening it out? A rum I expect will bring me back there again.
Douglas Collection: become Maguire a Janet detailSawyer in a larger work of multiple parts. But it remained unique.
Later, reconsidering it while on the residency in Italy, I set it on a sheet of paper that was considerably larger and envisioned the sea surrounding it. Aluminum on paper was an improbable collaging of materials and they became fixed only when mounted on board some time later. (see facing page)
those distinctively red cliffs that could be seen on approach to Oia, with a steep view up to the white-washed houses. The painting seems to grow in abstraction as the eye travels over the scene moving from right to left and the fully realized forms give way to strokes drawn with a brush. The view is also growing more distant. My attention was more to movement than perspective. Otherwise I might have emphasized forms that diminish with distance as they rise vertically on the picture plane, typical in a perspective rendering. As I looked toward the cliffs, the white-washed houses of the town seemed to grow out of the last whitish pumice layer. Rather than land form and architecture it felt of one piece with everything growing out of everything else. In most places I visited on the islands the houses were white-washed They were part of the landscape and seemed ageless. Perhaps the dwellings were ancient, but the white-wash was always fresh. Often the houses looked as though they were built into the rock, into the sides of hills, and in many cases they were; and it was traditional to build on tops of cliffs and high mountains as it protected the towns from invasion. It's startling how organic they feel, how in tune with nature. I first visited Greece in 1959 when I made the drawing on the next page of houses on a hillside.
om closer. where TheI started colors are on my dryer palette and th uted climate. and have a different atmosas there was a long struggle to resolution with the first cliff g, this one seemed to resolve he progressions were effortless worked themselves out ically in scales of muted color tance. It felt a little like ing music might. I had been g to Glen Gould on the piano as d (CDs of Mozart Sonatas). It en as though he was in the room , since I could hear him g as he played.
grows fromall tiny on cards or the scraps of paper intovision. line drawings utcropping thescribbles way to my right, at periphery of my I was somewhat readable. A couple of from the drawings did surround in an accordion he Aegean more and the small islands across SantoriniI that the ook wereOne, quiteNea helpful for composing the paintings basin. Kameni, still has seismic activity.that Thefollowed. entire view to tell the history of the island's geology. nting was done on one sheet of Arches paper that I had scored into . It wasofa drawings special paper, treated be usedcarry with a oils, however I found that number from the site. toI usually pack of unlined index
usually grows fromall tiny on cards or the scraps of paper intovision. line drawings small outcropping thescribbles way to my right, at periphery of my I was that arethe somewhat readable. A couple of from the drawings did surround in an accordion facing Aegean more and the small islands across SantoriniI that the sketchbook wereOne, quiteNea helpful for composing the paintings caldera basin. Kameni, still has seismic activity.that Thefollowed. entire view seemed to tell the history of the island's geology. This painting was done on one sheet of Arches paper that I had scored into It wasofa drawings special paper, treated be usedcarry with a oils, however I found that Isections. did a number from the site. toI usually pack of unlined index
come . I worked a familiar from view left tooutside right. my The door, scenerevisiting held a cinematic it from my quality new studio for esidency ind of movie in Heraklion. in ten frames, I hadthough compressed my lovethe of view Japanese but was folding already ating probably tryinghad it again moreon to a dolonger with the format. inspiration. I scored and folded g sheet into ten parts corresponding to the ten part sketch I had done. ad been considered as an entity as well as a part of a growing whole it made sense to work this way. However, I had expected that just as sketchbook, the painting would be presented as a folding piece. I it flat on the wall, though, and so when exhibiting it, I felt it would be tion to fold it, because it would not be seen as I had made and nced it.
little painting of houses clinging to the cliffs shows the view you see from there.
Elias (Elijah). Though miles away, I could see the mountain and dication of the monastery buildings from my window and decided on a tour. That's how I discovered the amazing view from the ery down into an abandoned quarry below, a pumice quarry as ost on the island, rocky remnants of volcanic eruption. Much of the d pumice (or tephra) used in the building of the Suez Canal mid ntury came from the Santorini quarries, the last of which were hut down in the 1980s.
here I stood, I could see the quarry and the sea beyond it, and in iminary drawings it took me a while to narrow my focus to just the itself. Months later, at home, searching for a canvas, I found one I andoned years ago. This already felt appropriate for the subject. vas had an imperfect imprint of a topographic map on it, and over reddish-brown ground. I made sure that the map remnants were not submerged as I painted. They add their texture and remain a eminder of the layering that happens in the earth and through time.
beyond my risk tolerance. Note the bus climbing the road in the painting, which shows the cliff from below. This one was also painted over a topographic map I had transferred to canvas, and you can see its textures as they play into the suggestion of the textures in the cliff face.
xnds 24in inches.Collection: for it whether or not we are River iving king Museum conversation the place a kind withof maps probably began in Newfoundland when I ntally ence.dropped Workinga on painting a painting I wasincompleting onto a map. It had been with on aa translucent map brought sheet in another of Mylar and so the map was visible underneath. cations on, adding and palettes a physical related and and I couldn't resist collaging the two r.ual Later combination I began doing that stretched map transfers the by setting an enlarged reverse print ons p onto of time a canvas and space saturated for me. with gel, applying pressure, letting the black norb, awareness and laterthat removing the layering shredded of bits of paper from the print that had ed a cliff attached. face shows It was itsageologic crude process that left an imperfect imprint of the kind of antique version with missing fragments, but this allowed me or imagining, an opening in the conversation.
inches (below) Icefiord with Map, 2009, oil on map transfer on canvas 36 x 60 inches. Collection:Richard Hathaway
lmost annually since the mid '90s.
seem like a huge turn around to go from painting in the Arctic to the ranean given the differences in climate and culture, but the evidence of eft in the rock at Santorini and continual changes with the ancient ice d by the glaciers in the Arctic related in my mind - the build-up of layers and the continual change as ice formations build and dissolve - the c history of the cliffs of Santorini, the ice in the Arctic melting away...
Mediterranean, reports from the Arctic on events taking place at sites I was familiar with were compelling me to consider these subjects again.
climbing school in Talkeetna just outside Denali National Park and try to get out there. I had been to the Muldrow Glacier twenty years before and painted an oil sketch from its moraine but then could only imagine its history; its movement was indiscernible. But now it was speeding up, wreaking havoc as it moved unevenly over rocks and debris that threatened to impede it. There was excellent documentation of the event, photos and a striking video produced by the Park Service. Watching the video I felt I could negotiate the movement as if I were the glacier. That's when I began making sketches and released myself from any immediate travel plans. Thinking about the current pandemic and trekking limitations given my eighty some years, this was probably a wise decision, but it was unusual not to begin work at the site, itself. The speed up that occurred was apparently a peculiarity of this glacier, which went through a similar event in the 1950s. But the speed up was of concern. In 2021 it was now among the many climate change indicators we have been getting from the Arctic. The speed up was likely due to melting at the bedrock beneath, that caused the glacier to slide ahead, thus creating the spectacle witnessed: the huge crevasses from layers moving at different speeds sliding over rock rubble and various debris.
y intact: see Pouch Cove, 2006, page 29 and Butterville Road tion, 2011, page 28. As I continue to work with them, however, the ent has become more symbolic than literal.
cent Blue Mountain Gallery exhibition (October 2021) that included gs of the Muldrow Glacier in Alaska, a man familiar with the area pointed of the paintings and asked why the map was upside down. dn't registered for me as the map had felt accessible from all sides and it ed to be a map of a different Arctic region. The transfer was already on vas when selected for the Muldrow painting and after that, my decisions ade in the spirit of seeing the whole, as one might turn a painting upside o see how the parts come together, free of outside references. It was tive to hear his question though.
nd and fellow artist, Alec Purves, looking at the same painting had nted that the lines of longitude on the map behaved like lines of recession andscape and that they seemed to converge at the central peak rising to of the painting.
n the painting had been like a dance between me and the canvas, the d the paint strokes. It was choreographed in a purely intuitive way. I ed the observations of both men. That it made sense and didn't make t the same time suggested ambiguity and this really pleased me.
ship, and a hike elsewhere over the ice to see wildlife in a place ond territory that was familiar to me. Unfortunately, because of demic and the restrictions on international travel, the trip was d. My thoughts, however, were still on Greenland, and I began ome oil sketches from moments captured in photos from earlier nytime I travel, I'm in the habit of taking a number of site photos to what I'm working on. I also discovered a series of photos of a rock on I often climbed to view the passing panorama of icebergs that d from a nearby icefiord.
g the memory and recognizing the interesting shifts in topography w included the rock formation I had been standing on, I realized as more I wanted to say. And as I was completing the Muldrow gs, my friend Ethan Plank helped me lug a big canvas up my staircase to the studio. It was a five by six foot canvas - bigger was. At that scale it was as if I was working from the interior, and nted, I felt myself swirling with the current and moving with the e whole process of completing the painting involved struggle and ure, including the ninety mile trip Ethan and I took to Blue in Gallery in New York, trying to keep the still wet painting from g off the roof of my car.
e to theOn Arctic where you can ment. the -highest peak there is a weather observatory, the Mount ceberg in the bay thatInseems gton Observatory. 1973, the meteorologists who worked at the a mountain, but when you come atory created a museum. I happened to be visiting during the early ew hours later it may have and was asked if I would paint backgrounds for the planned historical ared, gotten dislodged and as. The backgrounds would situate the buildings in their precise off by the current, or if it lingers ns on the mountain. They also needed a glacier for a geology display see it disintegrate. (2017) g the glacial action that had carved the peaks and valleys of the I had never seen a glacier and my research led me to various sources uded an illustrated book about John Muir's discovery of Glacier Bay ka. The well-known naturalist had realized while exploring the High
there, but during the 1990s, I started visiting the Arctic and my first trip was to Glacier Bay. I visited Greenland in 2007 and have returned there almost every year since. My focus has been the ice: glaciers, icebergs, bits of ice in the bay, the way the light hits the ice, refracts, or the way an entire wall of ice can range from vivid in color to almost invisibility, its definition changing with the subtlest changes in the light. When I first began my journeys, I saw the melting as seasonal, but it didn't take long to see that the spring melt was starting earlier and the bays were now clogging with tons of ice melt from the glaciers. The climate is changing, and yet in the midst of it, concerned though I am, I continue to find the need to address in my work the awe that I experience and the beauty that I see now at this moment.
Clark (born in Bay Shore, New York) is a figurative painter of al fresco landscapes ocus on icebergs and glaciers as they change over time on repeated visits north. nown for her experimental paintings using portable gessoed aluminum, Denril and frosted Mylar pieced together and extending irregularly in many directions, g panoramic expanses in these climes.[1]
e udied at Antioch College and then the Art Institute of Chicago before receiving a m Yale University in 1962. Her professors at Yale included Josef Albers, the director ogram, as well as figurative painters Neil Welliver, Bernard Chaet and Alex Katz. studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. She received her MFA from SUNY New
deeper."[3] An important early experience was the exploration of the White Mountains in New Hampshire which she started climbing in the late 1960s. Clark was selected by the Naturalist in Residency Program of the Appalachian Mountain Club, to paint at the Lakes of the Clouds Hut, close to the summit of Mt. Washington. It was the beginning of her awareness of change and flux in an environment.[4] The artist and environmentalist Alan Gussow brought a film crew to the top of Mt. Washington to interview Clark for "A Sense of Place" for Nebraska ETV in 1974.[5] Painting Shortly after her White Mountains expedition, Clark returned to New York and joined the First Street Gallery in the city's art scene in 1970s SoHo.[6] She was a guest resident of Telerate News Agency and NBC on the World Trade Center's 104th Floor for some months and a 28th floor studio of her own in NYC where Clark was experimenting with extreme viewpoints that had begun in the White Mountains. The style can be seen as somewhat abstract but the forms' solidity with strong light establish the urban and rural reality.[7] Clark has said her paintings are not literal recordings of facts, but are responses to what she sees. To bring together the shifting visions we all have before vast space, Clark abandons the single viewpoint.[3] Clark joined the Blue Mountain Gallery in New York in 1985 and became its director in 1993. Continuing her exploration of mountain landscapes, she traveled in the 1990s to Tibet, Nepal and the Himalayas. Over many subsequent art travels and residencies since the 1990s, which included Iceland, Greenland and Alaska, perhaps her most adventurous was a solitary stay in a cabin on a rock imbedded in the ice of Ruth Glacier on the slope Mt Denali.[4]:9 Clark draws on location and makes oil and watercolor sketches, keeping a photo journal to help recall.[8] The smaller works are done on site and the larger paintings are done in the studio.[2]
ness to their existence."[4]:10–11 Clark's anxiety about climate change keeps her g to the north, but the work is not directly political. In recent years, Greenland has r focus in many trips and she has become particularly close to the community of nnaq where she has chronicled the evolving scene. The director of the children's ere commissioned her to paint a landscape on the side of a 20 by 8 ft (6.1 by 2.4 ing container they had for storage with the subject of their own heart-shaped n depicted on it. It was completed in 2015.[9]
onal life York, Clark has exhibited in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Museum of of New York, American Museum of Natural History, Albany Institute of History and and the Hudson River Museum where she also guest curated a traveling exhibition mporary panoramas.[11] Her work is in the collections of the Anglo-American and Louisiana State Museum in Baton Rouge, LA, in Greenland at the Ilulissat Kunst , and the Upernavik Museum, as well as in the Hudson River Museum , Museum of of New York and the Albany Institute of History and Art. Clark has been a recipient merican Academy of Arts and Letters Childe Hassam Award, a National Endowment rts Artist in Residence grant and has written for Smithsonian Magazine, retracing f Thomas Cole.[10]Clark taught drawing and color theory for many years at Parsons of Design in New York City.[8] For references pertaining to this biography: See Marcia Clark (artist) en.wikipedia.org
THE ARCTIC
A Catalog of Paintings by Marcia Clark 2019 - 2021