In 'Urban Landscapes', Irene Clark has moved away from the narrative theme of her last exhibition, 'Place and Identity', into deliberately ambiguous and mysterious places. She has chosen not to give her paintings titles because naming them would give them an objective context. "It doesn't matter where the scene is as long as it has meaning for the person who sees it," she says. While the images are evocative of places Irene knows, the emphasis is on her exploration of an inner world.

 

For Clark, landscape painting is the ideal genre to deploy Old Master glazing techniques, seeking to capture the luminous quality of their works. The result is a series of canvases with a dark, poetic quality, dancing with glowing light emerging from shadows, whether shapes on a distant horizon or a group of rocks. These paintings are reflective, deeply satisfying fusions of landscape and mood.

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Mary Ryllis Clark,  October 2002