Seth Clark’s recent works include gravel roofs, peeling plywood and fragmented frames of broken roofs, spherical or mounds of shabby houses, which are studies of texture, matter, time and neglect. New work performed in his solo exhibition this week go through At Paradigm Gallery + Studios, he made a cautious addition: the limbs.
The Pittsburgh-based artist’s collage, soft and ink transfer drawings, and sculptures reflect his interest in the chaotic beauty of collapsed houses. Recently, his chaotic works sprout, strolled or ran, and added urgency and playfulness to the architectural form.
Using daily observations and photographs, especially in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Clark assembles references, sidings, gables, roof lines, etc. to emphasize various deterioration states. The materials and paper found provide layered textures of the paintings, which are then washed with ink, charcoal, graphite, softening and acrylic to age them. His new work is like a doll house, brighter than in the past, adding cheerful pink, yellow and purple to complement the darker brown and gray.
Clark’s anthropomorphic structure suggests the nature of residence-like akin to the soul of a place, in addition to its physical composition. The artist “attributes this change to being a father recently and cultivates the urge to instill hope into collapsed houses and broken curtains,” the gallery said. “First, the eye-catching mortality rate has now become a message that, even in a state of chaos and decay, there is still enough joy to find in dark places to pick up these things and create new things.”
go through From June 6 to June 29 in Philadelphia. See more information on the artist’s website and on Instagram.
