Drawn like modern cartoons or advertisement illustrations, Clark's works speak of the present, the moment he created them, and of the past through the subject matter. Though the images are the stuff of his childhood, Clarke strives to keep the personal touch of the brushstroke out of his pictures. Clarke makes his finished paintings by enlarging a maquette using an opaque projector to make a set of stencils through which the finished paintings are brushed. This process of creating stencils has been relatively the same since he began using it in the mid-sixties. Speed is vital to the freshness of Clark's works, and animation is the key to his style.
Every line is alive, no edge is ever straight.
The term describes the ghostly image that appears when paint ages and becomes nansparent, revealing earlier versions of an artist's composition. They remind us of all the changes artists have made in their paintings over the centuries, and encourage viewers to examine their own preconceptions about painted surfaces. In addition to twenty large scale paintings dating from 1988 through 1998, a series of maquettes are exhibited as well. The curator for this exhibition is Peter Blume, Director of the Allentown Art Musewn. An illustrated catalogue with an essay by April Kingsley is being published by the Museum in conjunction with this exhibition.