antony clarkson
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The Athole House Studio
Self-Isolation Artist Residency
30th March 2020 - 7th November 2021

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Picture
Over my career I have taken part in many artist residencies in various parts of the world; I have even organised and run a residency program myself. 2020 has brought new challenges to us all, I however intend to treat these challenges as opportunities. With this in mind today, the first day of my self-isolation having arrived back from my studio in the Untied States last night, I I launch my new blog which will become an integral part of this website as I redesign is over the coming weeks.

Artist Residencies give artists the space and perhaps more importantly the time to make new work; I intend to treat my time in self-isolation in the same way that I would if I were on an artist residency in another studio in another part of the world. Athole House Studio maybe one of my home studios but for me it is a work space, and lets face it, we all now have the time.

The Self-Isolation Residency 6th April 2020: Day 8

4/6/2020

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Picture
 'Lemon tea', acrylic on paper, 2019, Antony Clarkson.

I'm finding this an interesting project, it is of course a self-portrait but it is also a still life. Still life painting as a genre basically evolved from portrait painting, the selection and placement of the objects around the sitter formed the basis of the idea. It could be argued that early still life paintings were painted for practice between the artists portrait commissions.

Its not everyone's cup of tea, but personally I enjoy painting still lifes, they actually are great ways to practice both your drawing and painting skills. I frequently run painting classes both for individual students and large group where I will encourage the students to work from still life. Students will often try to work from photographs rather than from life; it can be hard in a studio to find something to painting if you do not have a model to pose for you, but a good still life set up can both challenge an artist and produce interesting work. Of course a good still life arrangement will try to tell a story, albeit a simple one. The image at the top of this post, 'Lemon tea' is a good example of this. I actually painted this as a demonstration  piece for an acrylics course that I taught about a year ago, the his objects in this painting were selected both for there narrative value and for their colour relationships.

Anyway, as usual I digress. Whist I was working on the landscape studies that I posted over the weekend I was considering how I would move my self portrait project forward. When I started thinking about this project in terms of a self portrait/still life it set up certain objects that I felt reflected my character, my likes and interests in my favorite chair. To some extent the problem with this arrangement was that the objects were all in the chair. the arrangement felt too contrived, too staged. Why would these things be in the chair like that?  But I still wanted to include the chair, its something that's quite personal to me. As I thought about it over the weekend I realised that there was a simple and quite elegant solution to this problem, chairs have an anthropomorphic nature, their arms their legs, their posture. If I am sat in the chair my body takes on the form of the chair, therefore I do not need to be in the chair, the chair, like all the other objects, comes to represent me.

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  • CODEX
    • plane >
      • Apophenia: An Uncanny Presence.
      • Control(s)
      • Personal Topographies
      • The Self-Isolation Residency
      • Americana
      • Mauve Skies
      • Scotland
      • Selected Drawing & Paintings,
      • The Teaching Years
      • Spatial Paintings 2006-2008
      • Paintings 2006
    • mass >
      • The Blind Men and the Elephant.
      • Spatial Conceptions 2014 - 2022
      • Painted Objects
      • Autograph
      • The Newtonian Nightmare
    • volume >
      • Enso nest
      • Someone else's storey
      • Shower, The Process Residency 2013,
      • Concrete Haiku
      • Atypical
      • The Murder of Crows.
      • Composition in White (Painting), The Breathe Residency:
      • Composition in White (Sculpture), The Breathe Residency:
      • Floorplan
      • Paper Scissors Rock
      • Pilgrimage
      • The Fifth Column
      • Tension
      • Arch
    • blogs >
      • The Self-Isolation Residency: Blog 2020-2021
      • Apophenia: An Uncanny Presence. 2022
    • artist statement
    • cv & education
    • contact