The following bio, written by Virginia Rood, contains excerpts from her essay on Clive Pates which initially appeared in Plein Air Magazine in October 2004:
At the beginning of his painting career in 1984, Clive Pates began a BFA course at a college that was a leader in the field of conceptual art. "I realize that my generation represented the first group of artists brought up with a training background focused almost entirely on abstract and conceptual work, and that we saw these movements as an established, normal approach," says Pates. "I sought to define my direction as a painter against this training. My own solution and evolution has led me to Plein Air landscape painting as a solid perceptual foundation from which to gage a future for painting." After several years working on his own, he received a BFA with First Class Honours and a post-graduate degree in figurative studies from Bristol Polytechnic (now the University of the West of England) in Bristol, England.
Pates prodigious talent in figurative studies was awarded with numerous commendations and scholarships, culminating in a prestigious Fulbright scholarship to study at the New York Academy of Art. Though the award was for figurative painting and sculpting, Pates began to spend all of his time perched on the corners of busy New York streets, fascinated by the compositional difficulties before him. These cityscape paintings resulted in the first of Pates' three Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants.
After returning from New York, Pates lived in Bristol during the academic year both teaching at the Queens Road School of Art and working from his studio. However, every summer he disappeared into the landscape to paint en plein air. He subsequently received the Julia Gomperts Residency in Casolé d'Elsa, Tuscany, Italy, the Roundstone Arts Centre Residency in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland, and the Robert Fleming Residency at Hospitalfield House in Arbroath, Scotland. Then, in 2002, he traveled to Mississippi to paint along the Tombigbee River and fell in love with the gothic shadows and shimmering light. The state of Mississippi reciprocated Pates' affection with three major solo exhibitions at three universities in two years.
Before arriving in the South, Pates had little idea of what to expect from the landscape. He arrived at the height of the summer and, based on his experiences of other hot climates, he expected to be confronted by a rich array of burnt reds and ochres. To his amazement, the land was as green and alive as the English landscape he had just left. This comparison was limited, though, since the verdure of the Mississippi landscape was completely transformed by the heat and humidity. "The shadows were deep and barbaric," Pates says, "and the light, lensed by the atmosphere, created a depth of colour that I had not previously experienced."
"The composition of the landscape also challenged my expectations," Pates explained. "I have been used to a formalized landscape because Europe has been modified by centuries of land management; every part of every scene has an historical implication, therefore the landscape is subservient to the human need. The Southern landscape is surly in comparison! I felt not so much a distance, but a mutual respect between the people and the land - almost a stand-off between the natural world and the inroads made by civilization."
This standoff reached a catastrophic conclusion when Hurricane Katrina swept across Pates’ home in Gulfport, Mississippi. Not only was his financial patronage focused in the devastated city of New Orleans, but his actual subject matter – the landscape – lay in ruins.
Pates tried to work in the remains of the landscape, only to find that the storm had just been the start of the destruction. He put days of work into each painting only to find his compositions erased overnight by a bulldozer.
A question and answer session with Virginia Rood:
What is the relationship between your paintings and abstraction?
Every thing we look at, as it is apart from us, is a purely abstract subject. Our conception of the world or a landscape painting represents a lifetime of learnt experience about how to look. The first thing that a painter has to accomplish is to unlearn the mass of experience and preconception, and look at pure tone and colour as unlabeled, shifting fields of light. Next, the painter has to consider form and evolve a way of seeing and interpreting that information that is not too invasive. In my own painting, I try to be economical with the information I provide, representing the necessary series of marks to interpret the subject painted. The mark or gesture has the utmost importance for me. These marks represent a record of my experience, small points of perception that form a completed vision of the landscape. Many people look at my painting from a distance, and are drawn to what they see as incredible detail, finding on closer inspection that the detail dissolves into splodges of paint. The splodges of paint are the emotional record of the experience of painting and have no part in rational interpretation.
In relation to the contemporary art world, do you consider yourself a ‘modern’ painter?
I have never cared for art movement terms because they limit perspective and define a certain attitude towards the subject. These terms are used by historians to divide and articulate the past, and have no relevance to the present moment. As a student, I needed to understand the history of painting and had to make constant comparison between my own work and that of the artists I sought to emulate. I aspired to a certain way of interpreting the world. After I finished my training (and by this I mean I had learned the necessary skills to translate any subject confidently to canvas), I found that all the painters I admired were getting in the way of my development. I was trying to use their skill base and perception of the subject to qualify my own work. I needed to trust in myself, and translate my own emotional perceptions with a practical hand that was my own. It was around this time that I started painting cityscapes as a new starting point to give me confidence to look at the world afresh. There are no shortcuts to producing work that has real content and meaning. A point is reached where the world must be looked at directly, and this is a small beginning to a lifetime of searching and understanding. I think that this is why schools of art based around one strong artist often dwindle and fail quickly. For the most part, the only form of work that follows from their teaching is derivative. The contemporary art market is dominated by school and fashion based art movements (especially at this moment when it seems that language has succeeded content). It is not possible to use a word or movement as a starting point for the creative process. The creative process must be drawn from a quiet eye and a direct relationship with the world.
What helps you to maintain the core of yourself when you are traveling, maybe away from home for years, and making yourself so vulnerable, so impressed by what you see? Is this related to your use of shadow? What is it that travels with you and comes out in all of your paintings?
The older I get, the less need I feel to change the environment or make it conform to my own personal vision. I think that this self sufficiency makes it easier to travel and avoid the loss that is associated with an attachment to a particular place. There is a kind of detachment that coexists with the act of painting the landscape. You need to have an emotional and intellectual independence in order to see clearly and interpret what you see.
The shadow in my painting is the painful experience of a lifetime. A painting, in some sense, must be painful. Agony in a painting reifies the beauty; without one, the other is a meaningless concept.
The ‘character’ of an individual is that quality that comes out in a painting and reveals that life has scored you deeply enough to lend your personality points of reason that create a hold for further emotional development.
