INTRODUCTION
WELCOME
For many years the operative word for my work has been “transport”. The sculptures of vehicles are intended to transport the viewer momentarily - to evoke a sense of spirit, time or place. Clay is the medium, and the wheeled subject is the vehicle used to deliver the message —- whatever that may be.
My work is as much about the creative process, a journey through a world of possibilities and chance encounters in clay, as it is about the actual vehicles that end up being represented. I’m seldom, if ever, sure where I’m going when I start a piece and, frankly, that’s part of the fun and excitement in it for me. Each time out it’s like learning to walk —- once you take the first step, the rest will follow. I would describe my process of working as organic construction. The focal point is different in each case. Sometimes the machine itself is stressed, while other times a place or event may be the backbone of the project. I pick and choose as I go, focusing on or exaggerating certain characteristics and perhaps eliminating others altogether. As each step is taken, each piece added, decisions as to importance or relevance per the whole are made, and the work begins to grow, taking on an identity all its own.
BIO
Dennis Clive was born in Niagara Falls, New York. He studied at the State University of New York at Brockport where he received his BS in 1972, and later at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Art and Architecture where he received his MFA in 1975. Clive first exhibited at Allan Stone Gallery in 1976, where over the years he was the subject of six solo shows, and included in numerous group exhibitions. His work has been featured at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Berkeley Art Center, the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati, University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery, and the Smithsonian’s American Museum of Art. Clive’s work has has been profiled in numerous publications including Artnews and The New Yorker, and was also the subject of a New York Times interview. The artist lives and works north of the San Francisco Bay, in Sebastopol, California.
Mixing Pop and Funk Art sensibility along with European portrait miniatures, for the past five decades Dennis Clive has fashioned ceramic works that explore iconic symbols of American culture. While taking an elective arts class in college, Clive began experimenting with the sculptural possibilities of clay. Inspired by a dream, he started creating whimsical facsimiles of motor vehicles, primarily trucks. Using the plastic and malleable characteristics of the clay along with an extensive range of surface and finishing possibilities, Clive developed objects and a style that would both satirize and celebrate their counterparts’ metal realities with bright glossy colors, and metallic glazes.
The artist’s subject matter of trucks and their roadside environment evolved over time to include automobiles of distinction, storied and nostalgic, with an emphasis on sport and speed. From there the work naturally developed to include aircraft as well, with a retro-focus echoing the rapid engineering developments of flight in the years between the wars. This fascination with wheeled, mechanical vehicles culminated in “The PLAYERS” , a tribute of sorts to the stylistic innovation and diversity of the most iconic fighting aircraft of WWII.
Marvels at a distance, the true extent of Clive’s abilities are further revealed when viewed close-up, where his attention and scrutiny paid to details like undercarriages, rivets, dashboard instruments, and windshield reflections are most apparent. The realism of the subject matter portrayed need not overshadow the inherently fragile nature of the clay or Clive’s ambitious uses of it. With a style that has its roots in and pays homage to Robert Arneson and California Funk Art, Clive has carved his own niche. His sculptures echo the childhood of the American baby-boomers, who grew up with build-it-yourself models, the fading memories of WWII, and the family automobile.
courtesy of ALLAN STONE PROJECTS
535 West 22nd Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY, 10011
Tel 212.987.4997
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“It is as if these machines are presented to us so as to allow us to experience the magic of the real thing even in its absence.”
- Allan Stone -
p. 104 Sotheby’s Catalogue / The Collection of Allan Stone, Vol.III , New York - 23 September, 2011.
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