A FEW THOUGHTS ON THIS AND THAT.

The world seems to be a little different today that it was, just recently. We are still experiencing differences of opinion on how to live amongst a global pandemic and stress, anger, bitterness all seems to be at an all-time high. Ty Nathan Clark turned off the news feeds, ignored certain social media sites and found space for breathing deep, reading, studying, listening, and daydreaming. The artist focused on joyous, funny and beautiful things in his daily routine. This is where the idea for this specific body of work came from, titled A Few Thoughts on This and That.

Each painting shares the artist’s thoughts throughout moments in the last year. The artist created the abstract pieces in a homemade form of relief painting. Relief painting is in a family of printing methods where a printing block, plate or matrix- which has had ink applied to its non-recessed surface- is brought into contact with paper. The non-recessed surface will leave ink on the paper, whereas the recessed areas will not. The artist took the basic idea of relief printing and created his own printing plates out of large and small pieces of cardboard. He would apply paint to one side of the cardboard and place it on top of canvas. The artist would then apply pressure on the cardboard by walking on top of it. When the cardboard is removed, a print of the painted image is left on the canvas. An avid writer, note taker and book markup fiend, the artist is often grabbing snippets of his writing or thoughts on specific chapters or poems he reads. These little word bites constantly become titles and thoughts behind his paintings.

Art critic and acclaimed author Dr. James Daichendt has dubbed Ty Nathan Clark an abstract philosopher, because of the amount of thought, story, and purpose that he puts into his bodies of work. Lines, flowers upon flowers, color and marks fill each painting like a poet would fill their note pad with words. Ty Nathan Clark uses the colors and layers playfully within each other the same way a daydream could sneak up on someone relaxing under a tree on a cool day in the fall. The artist hopes the work will bring viewers a relaxing and joyful environment, the same way one would experience reading a Mary Oliver or Rainer Maria Rilke poem in the middle of a blooming garden.

OTHER WORK FROM 2021.

Selected works from the series “Here’s to New Beginnings” 2020-2021 and “Paintings to Sounds” 2020-2021