The University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG), The University of Hong Kong is thrilled to present David Clarke: Colour in Space, an exhibition displaying giclée prints of the artist’s own watercolour paintings. By presenting one medium as another, Clarke develops an abstract art that plays with scale and explores different materialities. The images capture both the translucency and opacity of the carefully applied watercolours, while the digital printing technology helps to represent or transfer the design into a scalable print form.
Beyond the multifaceted visual qualities of these works, Clarke is interested in the relation and transfer of words into images and vice versa. Where abstract art is less confined to representing definable subject matter, the ability of visual compositions to represent verbal content offers a tangible or readable dimension. Clarke, who has previously collaborated with composers and writers in response to his photographs, now invites a composer and visual artist to draw inspiration from the paintings central to his current project.
The group of images is complemented by a piece of music composed by Chan Hing-yan. Clarke and Chan have worked together on several projects, including a past exhibition at UMAG. This collaboration further demonstrates Clarke’s cross-disciplinary approach, using his visual displays as a stimulus and starting point for responses from artists in other fields.
Each work is also accompanied by a comment from Dawn-joy Leong, a scholar and multi-media artist based in Singapore. Her reading of the images adds a further dimension. By offering her interpretation, Leong provides content and adds verbal meaning to Clarke’s visual images, multiplying the latter’s intention to represent words in images and images in words. Furthermore, physics professor Terry Boyce offers his own impression of the original watercolour painting. The presentation of these responses invites reflection, offering not a conclusive evaluation, but rather a personal and emotional engagement with Clarke’s work. Visitors can view this as a further introduction and the starting point to their own analysis of the artist’s use of colour in space.