Image by John Clark

Modern Primitives

Thu 7 November 2019 - Fri 20 December 2019

Alison Richard Building

John Clark’s paper sculptures combine simple but time consuming manual techniques with high tech design processes that result in objects that might be thought of as a type of modern primitive; objects that testify to the persistence of the personal in a world re-invented by technology and its aesthetics.

"In December of 2016, I made a cardboard model of a man I had painted many times. I wondered what would change by taking him off the canvas and standing him in the real world. It never occurred to me to model him with clay or carve him, and I certainly wasn’t going to start casting. I think of myself as a painter and thought of this experiment as one that addressed thoughts I had about painting. It had nothing to do with any thoughts about sculpture because I didn’t have any. Perhaps, for this reason, I took it for granted that he would be folded from paper or card and that he was more a surface than a volume, more a shaped canvas than anything else. He was always, and importantly, a bit flat.

So, I set about cutting and scoring and glueing card until I had him standing on the table. I was surprised by the result. He was occupying real space and, as far as my early question was concerned, what would change? it seemed to me that a lot had. At the very least the little guy opened up some possibilities which, in the two years since then, I have begun to explore."

This work gathered in this exhibition shows some of the results.

Cost: free