Rachel Lindsey Clark
Breath and Shadow
Drawn from life in the city
View from Old Billingsgate
The American Artist, Jim Dine described drawing as ‘… talking as clearly as I can’. For me drawing is a
language at its most direct when I am drawing from life. The subject of my latest Exhibition is ‘Life in
the City’. A visual expression of my experience of London. I hope to convey its movement, drama,
structures, overheard conversation, fleeting glimpses, changing weather and not forgetting, the ebb
and flow of the mighty Thames.
London with its continually evolving Cityscape has been a source of wonder for me since I was a
teenager escaping from School in the dull suburbs and heading to Trafalgar Square by bus. I explored,
on foot, all the Parks, Museums, Galleries and hidden treasures such as quiet squares and medieval
churches. Remembering visits to my Grandfather, a sculptor, living and working near the fashionable
King’s Road and the unforgettable sight of the glittering Thames, lit up by Chelsea Bridge at night on
our journey home.
My love of Cityscape and printmaking began as an Art student at Goldsmiths College in the late 1970’s,
where I was privileged to work in a studio on the Surrey Docks prior to its development. The bleak,
abandoned landscape with its rusting remnants, structures and sense of history fascinated me and
inspired my first lithographs which, unusually, I worked directly from life. Over the next decades I
constantly returned to Etching and Lithography which seemed to have the most expansive language
to convey line and tone.
‘Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of
permanence’. Henri Matisse
I believe that drawing existed as a means of communication
and of self-expression long before the spoken word and its
language is not limited to paper, charcoal or print. For me,
drawing may take the form of collage in almost any materials,
assembling found objects, even sculpture.
Fragment, British Museum
In my latest show you will find examples of my drawing in different media and of my working process
from lively sketches to very detailed drawings. Curiously, what appear to be simpler sketches often
follow an intensely observed drawing of the same place. The result, a summation of my experience.
Above all, my second solo exhibition celebrates a return to my first love of observation and response
to time and place, but perhaps with a new intensity and vigour that I hope is evident in these latest
‘If you are not skilful enough to sketch a man jumping out
of a window in the time it takes him to fall from the fourth
storey to the ground, you will never be able to produce
great works’
Eugene Delacroix
The Steam Tug, Portwey
‘Breath and Shadow’ is a title used by my late partner and fellow Artist, Vic Bateman to whom I would
like to dedicate this Exhibition. It runs from 3rd-29th October.
Paul McPherson Gallery, Lassell Street, Greenwich, London, SE10 9PJ
www.paullmcgallery.com See listing for details