Seth Clark is an American mixed media artist, whose pieces focus on abandoned and deteriorating buildings. In 2015 he has been awarded Pittsburgh’s 2015 Emerging Artist of the Year by the Pittsburgh Centre for the Arts. And has also received three design excel Excellence Awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Pittsburgh. His pieces are done with a complex layering process, he collages bits of found papers to create the worn down look of the architecture, it resembles peeling wallpaper or paint. Once the foundations are laid down, he begins to work into the buildings with various materials such as pastels, acrylic, charcoal and graphite to define and bring depth to the desolate fragmented buildings. Clark alternates between the collage and drawing to create a coherent blend of these mediums. He focuses on the gentle disintegration of architectural buildings because although they are on the brink of falling apart they appear honourable and magnificent in their state. These buildings were designed with the purpose of being permanent are now collapsing in on themselves:
Collapse XVII (42" x 33" Acrylic, Collage, Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite on wood http://www.sethsclark.com/work/#/collapse-xvii/ |
Windows (36" x 36") Acrylic, Collage, Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite on wood http://www.sethsclark.com/work/#/windows/ |
Like many of Clark’s other pieces, "Windows" is of an abandoned building that is slowly deteriorating due to lack of care and time, however, this time focusing on the windows. This piece of artwork is a realistic piece that fits into the category of still life. Clark uses the found bits of paper to create the worn down look of the windows as well as to create texture of the peeling paint/ wallpaper. Working into to piece with graphite and charcoal adds to the rough texture of the buildings it adds to the realism by add. Clark uses the collaged papers to incorporate colour, texture and even shape by building up the foundations of the building. He incorporates the formal elements of line from the windows and the structure beams of the building. There is no real focal point for the viewer to follow from but it only adds to the piece because it makes the viewer look harder at the windows as well as within them. Focusing on the windows to the disintegrating building I think lends to the phrase the eyes are the windows to the soul, it lets you look into the history of the building to make the viewers imagine what might have happened within this building that the windows have captured. The whole piece has a kind of haunting feeling, the gray on top of the black in the windows kind looks like ghosts or spirits.Most of his pieces contain very subdued hues ie creams, browns, whites, greys and often blue makes an appearance. But this piece also makes me feel kind of depressed through the use of these dark colours and broken objects depicted within the piece, probably was a lovely home but is now falling apart and is worthless.
on of my favourite things about his work is how Clark uses bits of found paper that resembles peeling wallpaper or paint in order to create the worn down look of the abandoned buildings and helps to create that extra bit of texture. I like how he often works into his pieces with charcoal and dark acrylics to create dark shadows in the windows and in-between wood planks and I gives his piece an almost empty feeling surrounding each of these buildings, they were once proud and full of life and now there is nothing. His use of a subdued colour palette i.e. greys, blues, blacks, creams and whites to represent its history of love and attention being washed away in and worn down by rain and time.
In my own piece, I would like to use Clarks use of layering process to help create my piece and making me think of the types of mediums I could use for f my own piece. I would like to use found papers and collage them into as a foundation for my work and building on top with acrylic to create a realistic or semi-realistic piece. I would also like to incorporate the use of colours to depict a certain mood much alike how Clark uses a subdued colour palette to convey a haunting or depressing feeling.
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