Amelia A. Clark

Studio Art and English major

Working from archive source imagery, I am a painter and printmaker interested in how reinterpreting an image through drawing reflects a collaborative effort to record the past – allowing time to double and fold back on itself through the efforts of more than one hand. My earliest conception of family was established through mediation, informed by stories and physical objects rather than direct connections. This dynamic – the construction of a single idea from multiple angles at once – has laid the foundation for my work as I attempt to discern my own position in time and the family ecosystem.

Love You Muchly

oil on canvas, oil on panel

Jewett Gallery, Jewett Sculpture Court, Jewett Hallway Galleries

5 large figurative paintings on a white gallery wall

In Love You Muchly, I explore how the action of painting can facilitate a connection between myself and my family through our archive of photos, shaping my own identity along the way. Most interesting to the process is the tension between the “truth” of photography and painting’s ability to present entirely constructed images as reality. While family photographs tend to have the appearance of candor, they are often meticulously posed to give the appearance of something that the subjects are not. In those small failures of composure are traces of the real person – someone who is mine in name and body, but not experience. While the composition of the paintings often seem to have sprung forth naturally, they are extremely time intensive; a jumble of repeated elements on a single canvas, voids, “unfinished” fields, or overlays of what appear to be unconnected text and images – each decision is the result of careful deliberation, reflecting both the time it takes to develop a relationship and my experience in archiving and establishing a line of connection between myself and family I have never known. As much as the process of painting these photos exposes my family’s insecurities, it also unwittingly exposes my own by association. From the photos chosen to the composition to the handling of paint, every decision contains traces of myself and is the physical result of a collaborative reckoning between my conscious and subconscious, externalized as the voices of the paintings.

square painting with figures of two women and two men slightly overlapping, primarily in shades of pink, blue, and green

vertical painting of a woman in long skirt with text reading 'INDIAN MOC / DAR HAND / FIREWORKS' overlaying her; she overlays other imagery including scenery and a woman holding the hand of a small child; mostly in shades of pink, yellow, green

vertical painting of a woman and two children with a tree and water, mostly in shades of blue, yellow, green with patches of bare canvas

a woman looking back over her shoulder at the viewer; she has blonde bangs and a scarf over her hair; a white frame makes it look like she is seen through a window; there are light blue marks behind and partially over her

square painting of a partially cut off woman in skirt holding the hand of a small child in dress, with pink square partly overlaying them; mostly in shades of pink, green, cream

two blue, white, ochre paintings hanging on a tan wall over a table with chairs; at right is a plant with large green leaves

close up on a painting in shades of blue and ochre, faces with offset overlays

close up on painting of face with glasses, offset in layers of blues, browns, black

series of small paintings hung salon style on a gray fabric wall; all paintings have figurative imagery from old photographs

to see more work by Amelia: ameliaaclark.com

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