Angol
Most nights between about 7pm and midnight Brian Clarke draws and paints on paper at his home in West London-larger scale works being made in the studio in Park Royal. The subjects of these works change over time but are made obsessively over periods that usually last about two to three years. Between December 2013 and August 2015 the subject has been 'Night Orchids'. The series began on a visit to Thailand and continued in France, but the majority were made at his home in Notting Hill, London. These drawings and paintings-all the same proportion and mostly the same size-vary from delicate white line drawings on black card to stained glass. They are coloured paintings of startling variety. The urge that drives these nights is curiosity. As in his explorations with Fleur de Lys, Spitfires, The Cross, Industrial Architecture etc., this varied iconography-in this instance, 'Night Orchids'-generates an apparently endless sequence of questions "about the nature of beauty and the void in which it flourishes".
