From The Collection: David A. Clark

David A. Clark, Made With Fire, encaustic monotype, 26.5” x 20.5”, 2011. Permanent collection of R&F Handmade Paints.

Artist David A. Clark has shown at a range of locations including OTA Contemporary in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the Conrad Wilde Gallery in Tucson, Arizona; The Painting Center in New York City; and the Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Springs, California, among others. His work has appeared in Art in Print magazine and is in the permanent collections of both the Process Museum and the Hunterdon Art Museum. He is an annual presenter at the International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown and has taught at R&F, Idyllwild Art Center, Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, and internationally at Zijdelings in The Netherlands. R&F is delighted to have a piece of his work in our permanent collection. We spoke with David recently to learn a bit more about his work and process.

In your artist statement you describe the red tin arrow that a friend loaned you and which you kept in your office for a long time as deeply symbolic of "an idealized sense of connection. It stood for the freedom that comes from leaping into the unknown in front of a crowd of strangers and represented the exhilarating rush of trepidation and possibility that accompanies an actor’s path from the wings onto the stage." Can you tell us about your background related to theatre?

I began my arts career in the theater. I got my first professional job at age eight and worked, mostly in theater, until my early thirties. I got to work with Robert Wilson and Peter Sellars, which was pivotal for me artistically, and after I transitioned out of my acting career, I worked behind the scenes on Sex & The City for five years before committing myself to my studio practice full time.

Artist David A. Clark in his studio.

I believe that the “sense of connection” and that feeling of trepidation and exhilaration that comes from “leaping into the unknown” is cross disciplinary. It’s not medium specific and therefore translates across media. Though my career began in the theatre in front of an audience, and then evolved into a visual arts practice, the original impulse never changed.

As artists and humans we long to feel connected; to bridge the gap that exists between two physical forms. Theatre does that and so do the visual arts. One only needs to stand in the presence of a great painting to feel it. The work shifts the air; you feel the resonance of it. You don’t need to know why. It’s that sense of dialogue on a subconscious level. I always strive for that in my work.

From this initial symbolism, the arrow evolved metaphorically to signify "a metaphor for being.” In your work the arrow is “a representation of the human figure; an expression of movement, time, or state of being; a meditation on direction, impulse, or legacy; and as a collective, an illustration of the journey or state of humankind." How did your relationship to the arrow develop as you worked with it? How did it transform for you over time?

David A. Clark, Ancient Histories #150, 37” x 25”, encaustic on Kozo, 2015.

In the beginning the arrows were definitely on some subconscious level a meditation on states of being, and my studio work continues to be a meditation of sorts. One of the great strengths of using a singular form is that it can transcend meaning and stand by itself. It doesn’t need a story.

I don’t usually start from a place of narrative. Some pieces, particularly the work I am doing now, have an organic narrative, a backstory, but I much prefer the work to speak to the viewer obliquely so they can connect to it without any predetermined script. The arrow functions well as a visual form because it can be interpreted myriad ways.

My use of the symbol has definitely evolved. The sculptural arrows in the work I am making now feel more like witnesses or guardians. My relationship to the form has shifted with time and it will continue to develop.

Please describe your studio. What is it about being there that excites you? What keeps you returning to the studio?

I’m very lucky to have 1,200 square feet of space in an arts-centric strip mall five minutes from my home. I have good light and the studio allows me to work on a scale that I was not able to do when I had a work space in my house. Selfishly I wish I had more space. I love being able to lay things out and look at them and there never seems to be enough space to do that, but I pinch myself every day.

David A. Clark, Ancient Histories #245, 42” x 39.5”, encaustic on Gampi, 2017.

How you begin a work? Do you sketch or do studies? How does your printmaking intersect with encaustic?

I’ll have an idea of something or this nagging feeling to work something out visually that often begins with a mood, shape, or something that is percolating thematically in my life. Sometimes that idea will take years to work its way to the surface and sometimes it’ll get made right away. Usually, I’ll have no idea how it will get made structurally because I might not have the equipment or the skills to build it, but I like a challenge and I’m happiest when I am flying blind and learning something new. I’ll often do numerous test pieces to get the “process” part of the work right and then just put my head down and see what happens.

That’s how I began printing with encaustic. My paintings at the time weren’t feeling quite right, so I bought a Hotbox without really knowing what it was and began printing. I had no idea what I was doing at first, but I quickly found a process that worked for me, and the images I was making were what I was seeing in my head so I just kept working and refining what I was doing. That’s pretty much standard practice in my studio. I do my best work when I’m taking a big risk. I’m always trying to push myself out of my comfort zone.

David A. Clark, Ancient Histories #250, 42” x 39.5”, encaustic on Gampi, 2017.

Are you working on a particular project at the moment? A body of work for an upcoming show?

I’ve been quietly working on a large body of sculptural work for the last two years that encompasses around sixty small wooden wall sculptures and some large floor and pedestal pieces made out of steel and glass. I’ve teased a few of the works on Instagram, but I’m not quite ready to show them yet. I’m hoping to do an exhibition of all of it at some point in the not-so-distant future.

What are some of the questions you ask yourself as you work?

I don’t know if I ask myself questions per se, but I am always thinking and consciously, or not so consciously, evaluating the aesthetic qualities of what I am doing in terms of composition, color, and structure. Those demands are tied to how “connected” the work feels. I’m always trying to distill whatever I am doing into the leanest form and pare it down to its essence.

Sometimes that happens easily, but there are always those pieces that emerge and seem, in some way, not quite right. I have two pieces in the studio now that I thought were finished, but elements of them are feeling not fully plugged in so they will likely be reworked until they feel correct. When I’m uncertain about a work I’ll pack it away for a few months and then bring it back out so that I can look at it with fresh eyes.

Failure can be critical for artists, providing an opportunity to shift in a different direction or revealing something about our work we didn't realize. Can you tell us about a failure that provided an insight?

David A. Clark, Ancient Histories #175, 32.5” x 44.5”, encaustic on calfskin, 2014.

When things go wrong or don’t go exactly as planned, there is always something to learn. In my studio they’re often errors in process that cause course changes that result in finding a pot of gold process-wise. I’ve had a few notable times when I made something and thought, “oh, come on David, do better.” I’ll thrown the piece aside in disgust and then, inevitably, I’ll come back to it later that day when I’m about to take out the trash and think, “hmm, that’s not so bad.” I’ll put it up on the wall and try to sort out the structure of the “failure” so I can recreate it.

Occasionally it’s just a small portion of the overall work and sometimes it’s the whole piece. I have a work that started out in the trash that’s now in a rather prominent private collection. Nothing is ever a failure, it’s just a stepping stone to something else; oftentimes something much, much better.

Please share a bit about the piece in R&F's collection. Did you make it as part of a workshop you were teaching?

The piece in R&F’s collection is a work from 2010. Back then I was using a lot of text in my prints set against a singular form. Those pieces feel like mantras to me now when I look at them, but I wasn’t really thinking of them that way when I made them. I think of Made With Fire as an expression of strength, and there’s a little wink in the piece to the process by which it was made.

Ancient Histories: Encaustic Monoprints by David A. Clark in the University Art Gallery at California State University Dominguez Hills, Carson, California in 2017.

Do you have a favorite piece of your work? Did you keep it or sell it/ give it away? Why was this piece meaningful?

I still have one of the first pieces I made with encaustic. It reminds me of someone who had a strong influence on my artistic life, and it predates the arrow. So it’s special in the cannon of my work. I also have a piece in inventory that has been shown a half dozen times that is amazing and has never sold, so I think that is the universe’s way of telling me I should hold onto it.

Dreaming at OTA Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2019.

How do titles figure into your work? Where do your titles come from?

Mostly the pieces are named for what they are, like Red Arrow #1, or Ancient Histories which now numbers almost 300 pieces, but recently I have been giving the works more descriptive titles, and the most current body of work has titles that are drawn from classical poetry, Greek tragedies and Grimm’s fairy tales which speaks better to their darker subtext.

What role does color play in your work?

I love working with color, and anyone who’s seen my paint storage will tell you I’m a bit of a color hoarder. But until just recently, while working on Ancient Histories, I was working with a very limited palette of 2 – 4 colors. I never felt limited though because you can get a whole world out of 4 colors. I am feeling the pull of a big burst of color coming sometime in the near future, but right now I’m working on a series of monochromatic paintings. My work always feels best to me when it’s pared down to the barest essentials. So we’ll see.

How much do you teach? What role does teaching play in your life?

I love to teach, but I don’t teach much by design. I do lots and lots of prep before my classes so students have everything they’ll need to really fly with the materials. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it. Learning is exciting, but it is also a vulnerable exercise, so it’s important for me to create a safe environment where artists can push themselves out of the boundaries of what they know. Hopefully I can help them feel more connected and present with what they are doing and facilitate a better understanding of the process of printing with encaustic. I also learn a lot from my students. Everyone intuits differently so I’m always curious to see what students do with materials and process. It’s tremendously rewarding to be a part of that.

David A. Clark, These Days Are Tears, 36” x 24”, rusted steel, 2021

Can you share a few other artists whose work inspires you or whose work propelled your own forward?

I think of the Jasper Johns Grey show at the Met in 2008 as being pivotal. I was just crazy about the depth of feeling that came out of his tones of grey. I was also really, really moved by the 2016 Philip Guston show “Painter 1957-1967”at Houser & Wirth in New York. That work still haunts me. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the corporeal qualities of some of the works of Theaster Gates and Harmony Hammond, and I’ve been reading Robert Ryman’s monograph which is spectacular.

Anything else you'd like to share?

I’m enormously grateful to all of the folks at R&F Handmade Paints for their support and encouragement over the years. I’m crazy about their paints, but I’m also a huge fan of all of the people. They’ve become like family. I’m tremendously thankful for that.

To see more of David’s work, visit davidaclark.com.