Painting

Building on his drawing practice, Brian Michael Clarke uses the medium of painting as vehicle whereby he can express in new ways, and develop further, his artistic voice; developing, as he has, a distinctive iconography of forms and a singular language of mark-making in oils and emulsion.

When painting, he often works on a larger scale; this, in turn, gives his paintings the ability to take on new relationships of space and structure that encompass the viewer’s space and perception in different ways.

Interestingly, his paintings have often been inspired by places he’s known and his experience of landscape – though he often draws upon landscape as a source of inspiration. In particular, ‘Roseberry Topping’ and the nearby ‘St Oswald’s well’, near Middlesborough (England), are two places that have recurred in his work for many years; perhaps, as an echo of his early memories of the area.