Artospective: Paintings by Clive Bryant from UK.

Modern Icons - Amy Winehouse.

An Interview with Clive Bryant.

Who and where are you from?

I am Clive Bryant from the UK.

How you got into this?

Although I studied art at school and went on to have a short music career, I soon became wrapped up in electronics and computing, and the need to earn a living from a “proper job”. I was involved in the tech and internet boom of the 1990s and early 2000s but I returned to more creative areas when I started Classical Comics, an educational graphic novel publishing company in 2007. That got me back into drawing, and when my involvement with that business had run its course, I moved on to fine art painting, particularly in oil. I’ve always had a lucky knack for seeking out information when I need it – maybe it’s the stars aligning on the astral plane! – and I’ve been fortunate enough to receive some wonderful and timely tuition in various workshops and courses both here in the UK and in the US.

What is your driving force?

I love psychology. Humans are so intricate and complicated. While part of that mystery is revealed when we get to know someone better, we can never know anyone completely. Not even ourselves. There are things about us all that remain hidden. No one knows their capacity to act in any certain way, or how they would react in an extreme situation. That concept fascinates me. Hidden depths – parts of us that are sheltered by the mask of society, or the mask of celebrity. How the roles we adopt enforce a certain way of behaving; how celebrity status can bring about misery and tragedy, and yet how people still crave it! Having a creative outlet for these thoughts is really important to me. I feel the need to capture the human condition.

What kind of work you do and why?

It pleases me to create work that operates on more than one level. The psychological aspects I talk about above run through my art, but the pieces also work on a more surface‐level. At least that’s what I aim to achieve.

Modern Icons

Celebrities are worshipped by millions around the world and I see a similarity between that and medieval religious works, which I link through the use of gold leaf. At the same time, I look to portray the person behind the mask of celebrity, revealed through quotations, different facial personas and associated symbolic elements (flags, objects, etc). All the subjects carry a sadness and a strong element of tragedy, which I believe is due to them being “ordinary” people who have used their talent to become “extraordinary”, thereby alienating themselves from their own humanity. Like religious icon paintings, they become a symbol of something instead of being themselves. The role, rather than the human.

Burlesque

These are great fun to paint! Really interesting shapes and poses, with entertaining colour splashes, lost edges, and paint action. It’s psychologically fascinating too. As with the Modern Icons, we see ordinary people deciding to become a different persona and using their talent to become what? Significant? Noticed? Famous? Or to express themselves artistically? They create a mask that they can hide behind, which might be to protect their vulnerable selves, or might be so that they can carry out their actions, like camouflage. There is a duality, just as their names are plays on words. And I encourage the similarity between how they look and the art that adorned US war planes in the 1940s. Femme fatale. Overall, as in Burlesque performances, these pieces are in praise of the female form.

Contemporary Portraits, or The Dark Reveal

I’ve only just moved on to these, but it’s a continuation of the above, concerned with how we only ever reveal part of ourselves; that a good deal remains hidden and “in the dark”. Despite not being visible, the viewer knows the rest of the person is there, and by completing the visual is thereby more closely linked to the subject. I want the viewer to be intrigued by what is not visible, just as I am – and that is a thread that runs through Modern Icons and Burlesque. In a way, I’m trying to paint what isn’t visible – to take the viewing experience beyond the canvas and the immediately visible.