Marion McKeone | Review of Pure | Temple Bar Gallery & Studios | The Sunday Business Post | 1997
Terse? Grim ? Tom ? No
Those in search of the heady, sultry feel that kinder climates evoke shouldn’t rely on the cantankerous Irish climate; a visit to the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios next week is a far better option.
Tom Climent is a young artist for whom many are predicting great things. Small wonder. At a time when the work of many young abstract artists is depressingly terse and grim, his exuberant , larger than life canvases, awash with colour and flamboyance, provide a breath of fresh air.
It’s difficult not to eulogise Climent’s work’ lush and rich, it moves miles from the stark abstractism favoured by so many painters. His work is mature and self-assured; hard to believe this 26-year old graduated two years ago. There is no sense of the austerity and bleakness characteristic of many Irish artists, abstract or narrative. Instead, the glorious, rich colours splashed across giant canvases create baroque, extravagant works.
His exhibition in Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, which opens on Thursday, contains around half a dozen works selected from 16 canvasses. The exhibition will be opened by critic Brian Fallon, who has been one of Climent’s most enthusiastic champions.
The final selection was unclear that the time of going to press, but a review of the entire collection revealed newer works which are more complex in structure. Not all of it will please everyone; I had serious doubts about two newer works which featured with oils, one, A Love That Blooms, is bedecked with tatty artificial flowers, the other entitled Pin Pick, with sewing pins.
The remaining dozen or so more than compensated – lavish splashes of ochres, blood reds, burgundys and greens create movement between the abstract and the figurative. Climent describes his work as abstract with a narrative structure, which sums it up nicely. Climent uses both oil and acrylic, painting on several acrylic layers first. What looked like large squelches of oil paint on canvas were in fact a sort of resin painted over with oil; they added to the luxuriant feel of the works.
Even the titles are flamboyant and seductive, conjuring up images of sultry weather, tempests and South Seas; Near Wild Heaven, Voyager, Revolution, Martha’s House, Your Blue Room and Spanish Elegy. However, one of my personal favourites, Betrayed, with strong Caravaggio influences, was awash with melancholia, in stark contrast to the sensual hedonism evoked by Spanish Elegy or Near Wild Heaven. Your Blue Room was another variation on a theme. Its Mediterranean blues showed a cooler, more restrained hand.
Climent hasn’t wasted much time making an impact; he graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork two years ago. Since then he has had solo shows at Blackcombe Gallery, University College Cork and the Triskel Arts Centre, plus a number of group shows in Cork and, strangely, Lithuania; aside from Lithuania, where his work featured as part of a group exhibition, this is his first major show outside Cork.
His work reflects little influence by Irish painters; he claims Goya, Titian, Caravaggio and Velasquez as his chief influences – it shows in this lavish use of paint and colours which give his work an extravagant and sensuous feel.
Isobel Smith, the eagle-eyed agent who has provided a short of adrenalin to the careers of other young artists like Brian McCarthy or Clea Van Der Grijn, has added Climent to her stable. According to Smith, who plans to take his work to England and the United States, such is the demand for his work that all finished work is now sold and there is a hefty waiting list of clients queuing to buy future works. This exhibition sold out weeks before it opened.
The exhibition is part of the Art Critics Prize, which Climent holds at present, and which entitles him to a solo exhibition in the gallery. Although the gallery may provide a backdrop which is a little austure for his work, this exhibition should not be missed. Climent is definitely worth watching.
Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, 5-9 Temple Bar, Dublin 2, Ireland www.templebargallery.com