Murray Clarke

BIOGRAPHY

Murray Clarke’s paintings explore the vagaries of our attitudes and feelings, and how sincerity can easily slip into irony. The works oscillate between disclosure and concealment, joyful and saturnine. Whilst personal, the paintings reveal more about the audience than the artist. Whether it be through utilising imagery from The Wizard of Oz, video game companies, or through paintings of sensual fabrics, there is no doubt as to the immediacy with which we are absorbed. The quiet subject matter, a piece of fabric or an adjustment to the cuff of a shirt for example, offer a moment of stillness and reflection; almost as if to say, 'take a seat I'll put the kettle on', and yet, something about these works simultaneously repel, as a facetious sincerity begins to reveal itself.

Conjured from the horror vacui of our shared existence, the paintings are suffused with a Capitalistic shallowness that shatters the initial security and warmth purported. In equal parts these paintings both invite us and push us away as we begin to question their initial warmth embrace and we are ultimately left vacillating over their true nature. 

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