Symbiotic Nature
"Symbiotic Nature", Solo Exhibition by Eugene Clark,11/2-12/14,2023, Macomb Community College,MI
Join us to celebrate the current work of artist Eugene Clark at an opening reception in The Art Gallery at Macomb Community College from 5-8 PM on November 2nd, 2023. The Art Gallery is located in L Building - Fine and Performing Arts on Center Campus. The entrance is just west of the Center for Performing Arts, next to the loading docks. Look for our blue "Gallery Opening Today" flag.
The show will be on view from October 31st through December 14th. The gallery is opening Monday through Friday from 9-5.
This exhibition includes two current bodies of work by artist Eugene Clark.
In his five panel pentaptych painting titled “Transformation”, Eugene Clark explores the power of transformation. As alchemists sought the conversion of base metals into gold and a universal cure for disease, Clark seeks, as in butoh-ka (butoh dancers), to attend to metamorphosis and healing through the body. The ancient Celtic stag symbol, is integrated, seen as protection, when painted on a warriors chest before battle. The spiral symbol is the age-old intuitive symbol of spiritual development and our identity with the universe. Clark uses this as a way to connect all the panels. The additional four panels highlight the artist’s struggle with current events, including: the 2020 pandemic, 2021 Oxford High School shooting, 2022 Ukrainian war, relating these events to his childhood growing up in Detroit, finding commonalities, strife, grief, violence, destruction, and the human condition.
His series “Anatomy of Humanity” is a convergence of the concepts of COMMUNITY and DIVERSITY, and the anatomy of one shared humanity. The imagery in this series explores a group of people living together sharing the common threads that make us all human, while celebrating the differences in the human experience , including but not limited to race, religion, culture, and gender.
Following in the footsteps of famous artists like Picasso, Clark defines both community and diversity, while maintaining his abstract expressionist style, with a post-modern twist. His background as an anatomist affords him a vast array of imagery to draw from. The distinct edge of a human rib spirals in a curving motion directing the viewer towards the edge of a scapula, or an ilium. He begins with an underlying figurative element, which through these colorful fragmented anatomical images, becomes exposed on the surface to the viewer. Clark weaves together the anatomy of the human form with rich and colorful images, suggesting our common thread as human beings, and the beauty that lies within the diversity of our cultures and the vastness of our collective experiences. To learn more about the artist and his artwork visit his website:
