11 Andrew Clarke

Sunshine Coast Art Prize 2016 – Finalist

[Image courtesy of the artist]

Andrew Clarke | The Penultimate Fork | 2015 | oil on canvas | 100 x 150 x 5 cm

Artist Statement

My practice is concerned with a reinvestigation of ‘Grand Narrative’ in painting. I seek to reinvent this tradition to reflect my experience of the times in which I live. My work acknowledges painting’s limitations, and denies the heroic aspirations of classical narrative painting. It affirms, however, and utilises certain historical ideas with regard to how pictures can be built.

I am interested in creating paintings which acknowledge themselves as constructions. Paintings which indulge in the illusory solidity of imaginary space. I present scenarios that are obviously staged, despite their attempts to invoke the spontaneous. The moments depicted are of banality and boredom, dramatised and at a monumental scale.