In his studio practice, London-based painter Clem Crosby uses line, color and form in a particular way that imposes control while simultaneously unleashing an unbridled freedom in conceiving his paintings. The result is that Crosby congeals his imagery to –or allows it to recede from–the surface of his compositions and in doing so exposes the artist’s process– a dance between surface and the painterly event where gesture (attempting to assert itself as a predominant force) is the “thing” itself.
At Aurobora, Crosby switched gears and reined in the monotype process –employing repetitive ovoid shapes in a variety of colors as surface patterns. Here, on a slick plate surface, the artist transfers the painterly mark (through the use of the intaglio press) and permits it to slide into an unknown and slippery place. This is where artistic intention becomes irrelevant or simply abandoned and what rises in its place is a new space that Crosby has crafted through experimentation.
Crosby’s monotypes continue the artist’s inquiry into the complex process of creating and receiving an image. These works on paper are a testimony to an artistic intelligence that permits an image to become both compositional surface and prima facie evidence of a painterly event.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Tate Archive, London, UK; City Museum, Leeds, UK; Microsoft Collection, Seattle, WA; U.C. Berkeley Museum, Berkeley, CA.
