Tom Climent

Sundial

Jackson’s Painting Prize 2020
Oil
Canvas
137 x 122 cm

“My recent work tends to focus on the creation of a structured space, while investigating the boundaries between abstraction and representation.

This new series is focused around spatial constructs and how they might provide a structured space for our environment. Referencing landscape, various types of structures and natural phenomena, the compositions range from the visually complex to simple basic structures. It suggests a narrative but never actually reveals what that might be. The paintings also investigate materiality and aesthetics. The layers and the mobility of the paint and textures become a witness to the thought process of their making. The final result is a surface that is open like an archaeological site.

The way I work is largely intuitive, painting for me starts a process of discovering unintended connections and relationships, of trying to search for reason and meaning in each work that emerges. The first marks and structures create the environment for a process that requires me to constantly re-evaluate what’s important so I can find out what the painting will be. I feel as if I’m in a relationship with the painting, it guides me as much as I control it.”