Contemporary Art | United States | Wade Gregory Clark - Artist

Wade Gregory Clark

In Vincent We Trust
2014
Water Colour On Cotton
8” (20cm) x 10” (25.5cm)

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(The loon in Washington D.C)
2019
Ink, Spray-paint and acrylics, paper print on wood panel.
8x8”
Painted after my most recent visit to examine the painting by Vincent Van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1889, in the National Gallery of Art Washington D.C. *
The Washington D.C was painted during Vincent Van Gogh’s voluntary internment in an asylum the “Washington Dc canvas” is one of the very last self–portraits that Vincent ever painted. *
Just before Vincent painted the canvas he suffered a severe breakdown that was probably a symptom of epilepsy??? but many other theories and diagnoses have been suggested over the years, including, bipolar manic-depressive disorder, schizophrenia and alcohol poisoning). *
Any-who the breakdown left him disabled for five weeks and he was greatly unnerved by the experience which led him to retreat into his studio where he refused to leave or even go outside to his garden. (COVID 19ism)
*
It was during this time “locked up” in his studio that he painted two self portraits one of which is in Washington and the other in Musée d'Orsay, Paris).
*
In a letter to his brother Vincent wrote that he preferred the “Washington D.C” portrait and remarked that he felt he had captured his true character with the painting.
*
In his own world’s Vincent wrote “They say—and I am very willing to believe it—that it is difficult to know yourself—but it isn't easy to paint yourself either. So I am working on two portraits of myself at this moment—for want of another model—because it is more than time I did a little figure work. One I began the day I got up; I was thin and pale as a ghost.”

Observation 23: The Last Cig

2018
Acrylic on Wood Panel
10"x10"

My painting submission (Left) for the BARNES FOUNDATION Let's Connect exhibition, is a response to Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s pastel artwork Two Nudes, c. 1897 (BF154). Renoir’s small, simple but fascinating artwork left me wondering, What were these two nude women actually doing? Dancing? Making love? Wrestling? The ambiguity set my mind racing and the image lingered with me well after leaving the Barnes. Later that evening whilst walking home through the city centre and past the Board Game Art Park or “The Pit” as the local Philly skateboarders like to call it, I witnessed an argument between two women whom appeared to be suffering from a substance abuse disorder. Their argument quickly turned violent over who would get to smoke the last cigarette. This quickly resulted with the pair wrestling to the ground and mirroring with uncanny accuracy the rolling pose of Renoir’s two nudes. This juxtaposition of Renoir’s artwork, the pit fighters and the coincidental link to “smoking a cigarette”, a theme common within many of the artworks of Barnes collection, all helped culminate this painting study that I’ve titled Observation 23: The Last Cig.

X-zibit

1999
Oil on canvas
Triptych 142"x237" (360 x 600cm)
Monash University Art

Melbourne Storm

1998
Oil on canvas
71"x48" (180 x 122 cm)
Private collection

Melbourne, late 1990’s and the city streets were flooded with cheap high-grade heroin. Overdoses during this time happened daily and sadly most often resulted in Death. Smack! it was’a dime a dozen. “hey! Ya chasin’" was the devils catch-cry when riding the trains!
So many of people lost a son, a daughter, a sister, a brother, a friend.
It was a storm… a storm we’d never forget. It was the ‘Melbourne Storm’.