BlueLeaf Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
Through 13 december 2012
Irish artist Tom Climent’s most recent work is on view at Dublin's BlueLeaf Gallery. Most recent Tom Climent's paintings tends to focus on the creation of space, investigating the boundaries between abstraction and representation as a means of conveying this, exploring the dematerialised qualities that one does not actually see in reality and using spatial structures as a vehicle to make this quality solid and physical.
The perception of space is a complex phenomenon; we have not simply a mental apprehension of space but an experience of living space. The creation of space through perspective indicates a fixed point of view; a lived space contains a remembrance of past space and a longing for future spaces. The postion of the viewer is always shifting.
Tom Climent’s practice of art to date has been as a painter and one of his interests has been in how art addresses the body in space. For him a painting could become a window connecting an inside with an outside. In his work the devices of perspective and more abstract methods of reduction can create a pictorial surface which allows our bodily world in.
Tom Climent's initial enquiry was focused around spatial constructs and how they might provide a structured space for our existence. Taking a basic structure as an analogy for our place in the world, he started to create very rudimentary spatial structures; a fundamental shape or vessel that could contain a human presence. People organise space so that it meets their needs and supports their social interations. The space buildings create have an important part in how we live our lives. A body is a lived body and as such the spaces it inhabits are lived spaces.
From this original idea Tom Climent's paintings have become more intricate and complex in structure. As traces of memories and feelings accumulate and overlap on the canvas, construction and deconstruction become active tools in the creation of his paintings. His work reminds us of how our spatial ability becomes spatial knowledge as we navigate our world and with this knowledge we create a place for ourselves. Our expression of this place inheres in the kinds of structures we create for inhabitation. A building is a container - for ourselves. Is this space then, our most basic root in the world; a footprint of our mode of being here?
Previous solo shows of TOM CLIMENT works include Between Chance and Rhyme at The Hunt Museum, New Paintings at The Fenton Gallery, Pure at The Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Dust at Garter Lane Arts Centre, Hansels House at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, A Light Enters The Land at BlueLeaf Gallery, Dancing Parade at Triskel Arts Centre, Ashlar at The Alley Theatre Arts Centre, Harvester House at The South Tipperary Arts Centre and more recently his MA by Research exhibition at The Wandeford Quay Gallery.
TOM CLIMENT is a recipient of the Tony O’Malley award and Victor Treacey award. The artist work is in the collections of The Central Bank, The National Treasury Management Agency, University College Cork, AIB Bank, The National Self-Portrait Collection, NCB Stockbrokers, The Cork Opera House, Cork City Council , The Office of Public Works, Cork Institute of Technology & Private Collections in Ireland, UK,USA, Spain & Canada.
Ciara Gibbons, Director
Lorna Sweeney, Gallery Manager
BlueLeaf Gallery
Whitaker Court, Whitaker Square
Dublin - Ireland
www.blueleafgallery.com
