GARY CLEMENT

Everybody And His Brother, April 2017

I believe it was Mel Torme, aka The Velvet Fog, who once said;  “JS Bach is the father of us all”. I have no way of confirming whether it was actually Mel Torme who said that or if it was actually ever said at all by anyone. The internet is of no help in this case. I do know that Bach was commissioned to write the Goldberg Variations by a Count Kaiserling to help him overcome his chronic insomnia. This too, however, may be entirely fictional.

Despite it’s shady and perhaps utilitarian origins, the Variations are now considered to be one of Bach’s towering achievements.

Although I wouldn’t dare to compare myself to Bach, I would say that the drawings and paintings in this show began as an exercise but at some point during the process of creation became an end in themselves. The drawings were improvisational. I sat down every night without any preconceived ideas and drew one or two, sometimes three at a time. 

I can say with absolute certainty that drawing on paper has always been my way of reasoning with the world, it is my natural method for interpreting and reorganizing experience and information. And it is my gateway drug to painting.
I can also say with confidence that I agree with Mel Torme, for what it’s worth.

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Gary Clement suffers from a chronic condition which causes him to fantasize that life in some pastoral countryside setting is somehow better, more wholesome and altogether more fulfilling than life in the city. Though recurrent, this condition is temporary and generally harmless. His heart, soul and brain are thoroughly metropolitan and the drawings and paintings in this show reflect his ongoing fascination with the interior and exterior phenomena of urban life. An agitated state of mind, a high-strung system of sinew and muscle, a jittery hand drawn line, these elements are all intrinsic the paintings and drawings by Gary Clement.

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"Gary Clement's astronaut watercolours revel in the human side of an otherwise cold and dark world of science and technology. His astro-dads pose for portraits in the family home and at work, floating in a vast and empty negative space. It is hard not to feel the intimacy of the moments that we are accustomed to seeing in the NASA archives."