Ben Watkins

Smoke Tangles

2021

Artist Comments
Liquid gold metal drawn over diagonal black and white stripes. Thick, painterly texture provides numerous angles to reflect light. The edges of the piece are finished in gold. Created by carefully manipulating metallic foil with heat and varying pressure over the course of many weeks. This is a highly specialized and unique technique developed by M. to achieve her goals of bending light and drawing out distinctive elements in the foil. The work is very luminous and will display individual characteristics in different lighting situations.

About the Artist
M. Clark sculpts metallic foil with heat and pressure to create rich surfaces that are highly reactive to shifts in light. She strives to continually push the bounds of her gold foil medium, including working directly with a manufacturer to develop foil in specific sizes and colors that were not previously available. As a person with dyslexia, her artwork has roots in the way she processes symbols. "The multidimensional shape and arc of letters are more powerful than stringed characters forming words," she explains. M. lives in New York and works in a studio on the 35th floor with big windows overlooking the East River. She describes it as an inspiring and calming space, and is fastidious about keeping the place organized. Her work has been exhibited nationally, including a large scale installation in the Smithsonian, and is collected internationally.

Words that describe this painting: gold, metallic, luminous, pattern, geometric, modern, Jackson Pollock, abstract, non-representational, modern , mixed media artwork, yellow

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