Creation 2006

Editor: This is "Creation" by Ed Clark, from 2006, created with acrylic paint. It's mostly blocks of blended colors... it feels elemental to me, like earth, water, and sky mashed together. What's your take? Curator: I see a work that's fundamentally engaged with the materiality of paint itself. The canvas isn’t just a surface, but a terrain where the artist confronts and manipulates matter. Look at the thickness, the visible brushstrokes; Clark foregrounds the labor of creation. Considering its date, how does it relate to the Abstract Expressionist movement it seems rooted in? Editor: Well, Abstract Expressionism often downplays representation, right? Focusing more on gesture and the act of painting… which this definitely seems to do. Does this act change or reinforce the art and craft binary? Curator: Exactly. Clark is consciously dismantling hierarchies. Traditionally, "high art" involved masking the artist's hand, but here, the *making* is the message. The visible process collapses the distance between artist, material, and viewer. Think about what it means to present the making of art so explicitly. What commentary could this have been making about production in that time? Editor: Maybe about valuing process over a polished final product? Curator: Precisely. And beyond that, reflecting on how art objects themselves become commodities. By emphasizing the labor, is Clark offering a subtle critique of art's role in consumer culture? Editor: That's really interesting. I hadn't considered that angle before. Seeing the visible process as a form of commentary… Curator: It makes us think about what constitutes 'value' in art and in broader society. I appreciate Clark is urging us to consider the hands that make art and their labor. Editor: Thanks! I learned so much about thinking about process over representation.