PHIL CLARKE

Australian artist Phil Clarke describes himself as a New Realist, while critics have drawn parallels with the enigmatic Surrealism of Dali and Magritte as well as the humorous, tongue-in-cheek influence of Andy Warhol. His paintings are characterised by startling, often amusing juxtapositions of the ordinary and the strange, which seize the viewer's attention and provoke a response.

Clarke’s paintings, like Magritte’s, present a challenge to accepted ways in which we see and think, and he has a good reason for this. Central to all his work is a desire to break through to some element of truth in an age of unprecedented information and misinformation. It may be about power, and its creative use or abuse, or conservation, or philosophy, history or geopolitics. Through his paintings, he seeks to involve the viewer in his concerns.

Phil Clarke was born in 1958 in Sydney and studied art at the National Art School from 1975 to 1978. He then lived in Europe for 10 years, most often in Cadaques, northeast Spain, where he met Salvador Dali, whom he visited and observed at work for three years from 1979 to 1982. Clarke first visited Hong Kong in 1985 and had several one-man shows here before returning to Sydney in 1998. He has also had solo exhibitions in Sydney, Cadaques, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Paris, Barcelona, Los Angeles, and Marseilles.