Julia Rosa Clark
Current Review(s)
'Paradise Apparatus'
Julia Rosa Clark at Whatiftheworld/galleryJulia Rosa Clark’s ‘Paradise Apparatus’ is a schizophrenic exhibition, both in style and subject matter. The artist addresses two very different themes - her own vocation and practice, and her obsession with Nature - handling them in contrasting idioms that fail to cohere. She tackles her calling and art-making with lucid precision in a conceptual mode, producing crisp, pristine artworks that effectively communicate, whereas obfuscation mars her treatment of the theme of Nature which expresses itself in a wild, woolly language vaguely related to Arte Povera. This latter parlance resists analysis and often degenerates into incoherence.
The title ‘Paradise Apparatus’ alludes to mankind’s quest for felicity, its compulsive need to give meaning to life, discover a goal, and thereby find fulfillment and a limited transcendence. This is as close to heaven as we can come. As Clark is an artist, her ‘paradise apparatus’ is her creative métier and practice, which is here directed toward self-analysis, delving into her past to discover how she became what she is, and plotting her emotional and intellectual trajectory from childhood to the present. Her parental home was intellectually sophisticated. Both her father, an artist and film-maker, and her mother, a poet and laboratory technician, were avid consumers of culture, imbuing Clark with wide-ranging interests in art, theatre, ballet, cinema, science and medicine.
03 February 2010 - 27 March 2010
Booty
Julia Rosa Clark at Whatiftheworld/galleryAccumulo ergo sum. It seems silly to point out the obvious, but in today’s social terrain, where any sense of the fixity of meaning has long since been obliterated, there remain imaginary anchors which weight our selecting, discarding, borrowing, appropriating, layering, deconstructing of the visual. 'Booty', an exhibition of what can best be described as a cacophony of encrusted collages, employs and valorises such semiotic voyages – and in fact, adds a few to the fray for good measure. Julia Rosa Clark’s ensembles, presented in her recently opened solo show at Whatiftheworld gallery, explore the realms of colonial appropriation, history, memory and representation. At the same time however, Clark manages to steer an idiosyncratic path, exhibiting her own agency and position when encountering these broad themes, using chance and contingency to unsettle such notions.
19 April 2012 - 26 May 2012
Listings(s)
'Paradise Apparatus'
Julia Rosa Clark at Whatiftheworld/galleryJulia Clarke presents ‘Paradise Apparatus’, the third show of a trilogy that includes 'Hypocrite’s Lament' (2006) & 'Fever Jubilee' (2007/8). The exhibition continues Clarks exploration of the intricate and fraught relationship with Nature focussing on the sensations and mysteries of chemistry, perception and colour as they relate to the search for fulfilment with references to aspects of science, alchemy, theatre-craft and art making.
Experimental and sometimes overwhelming, Clark’s installation comprises both two and three dimensional objects creating an experimental platform where with space, analogy, accumulation, repetition and co-operation are combined to extraordinary effect.
The artist will conduct a walk-about on the 6th and 13th of March.
03 February 2010 - 27 March 2010
