Carissa Farrell | Introduction to Aspect | A catalogue accompanying the solo exhibition at Solomon Fine Art | 2018

Aspect continues Tom Climent’s exploration of the diminishing boundaries between landscape and abstraction by travelling further into fictional terrains of hybrid mountains, hills, uplands and plateaus. In previous groupings these features of the temperate Irish countryside seemed in harmony with Climent’s colourful and architectural interventions. This selection for the Solomon suggests a moment of separation between these two elements, a kind of fission that triggers the release of energy into the atmosphere. This activated geography is a less hospitable place that radiates arid heat and heightened artificial colour. Paintings that seemed clement before such as Gimle and Andlang appear to have been scorched in the company of newer works such as Follower and New Life.

Climent describes New Life as the centre piece for the show and it could be the culprit underpinning the cause of cataclysmic change in other works. It captures the detonation of an explosive lift off or landing, of one of Climent’s hybrid peak structures. This mountain is wider, more jagged and its somewhat ungainly appearance is emphasised by the dusty matter billowing out from underneath, possibly from the impact. Climent’s facility for painting renders the powerful downdraft sublimely, sending clouds of purple and orange powdery material floating upwards. Set on a fertile hill-top the contrast between the pastoral location and its strange geometric modifications is now stark, signifying rupture or, less brutally, a leave-taking. Either way it has pushed the narrative closer to science fiction and loosens the painting conventions that previously tethered Climent within the limits of landscape painting tradition.

Similar in narrative to New Life, Magic Mountain pulls itself away from its hill-top position more successfully spilling expanses of orange and blue paint that are pulled and scraped down into a dark pool of ultramarine. The depth of field here is deliberately confusing invoking the viewers sense of spatial perception and triggering an unconscious impulse to enter the virtual world of the painting to investigate the nature of its three dimensionality. A conjoined set of mismatched dwelling structures with elevations of pinks, browns and green are set into the mountain at its highest point. Whether by design or because of the mound’s upward thrust they lean perilously forward and echo the awkward posture borne in New Life.
Follower takes an epic view of Climent’s otherworldly landscape and bathes it in a luminous array of hot orange, lilac and pink. A mountain hidden from view casts a long purple shadow in the middle ground suggesting nightfall arriving. Its effect is to deepen the perspective and heightens the drama of the searing heat and golden light. The surface of Follower is rich in textures and layers of painting that remain visible through one another. The result is a shimmering work of unique depth and life.

The abundant poetry in Climent’s painting is partly a result of his use of the traditional and romantic format of landscape painting combined with the sheer visual pleasure in his rich colour palette. Embedded in these conventions are the heretofore mentioned strange and eccentric elements that give away his self-critical processes of checks and balances. What stands out is his carefully mined and wonderful glossary of titles for his works, with gems such as Gimle, Alfeim and Andlang. Giving titles to paintings could be a hard-won phenomenon of concrete poetry. It is no elementary task to take the topographical shape, onomatopoeic sound and etymological origin of a word and somehow match those elements with each other and a tangible work of art. It is an unusual and appreciated delight to enjoy the titles of these works while enjoying the works themselves. This attention to detail testifies to Climent’s commitment and value as an artist, as much as his accomplishment and ability to paint.

Carissa Farrell | Introduction to Aspect | A catalogue accompanying the solo exhibition at Solomon Fine Art | 2018

Aspect continues Tom Climent’s exploration of the diminishing boundaries between landscape and abstraction by travelling further into fictional terrains of hybrid mountains, hills, uplands and plateaus. In previous groupings these features of the temperate Irish countryside seemed in harmony with Climent’s colourful and architectural interventions. This selection for the Solomon suggests a moment of separation between these two elements, a kind of fission that triggers the release of energy into the atmosphere. This activated geography is a less hospitable place that radiates arid heat and heightened artificial colour. Paintings that seemed clement before such as Gimle and Andlang appear to have been scorched in the company of newer works such as Follower and New Life.

Climent describes New Life as the centre piece for the show and it could be the culprit underpinning the cause of cataclysmic change in other works. It captures the detonation of an explosive lift off or landing, of one of Climent’s hybrid peak structures. This mountain is wider, more jagged and its somewhat ungainly appearance is emphasised by the dusty matter billowing out from underneath, possibly from the impact. Climent’s facility for painting renders the powerful downdraft sublimely, sending clouds of purple and orange powdery material floating upwards. Set on a fertile hill-top the contrast between the pastoral location and its strange geometric modifications is now stark, signifying rupture or, less brutally, a leave-taking. Either way it has pushed the narrative closer to science fiction and loosens the painting conventions that previously tethered Climent within the limits of landscape painting tradition.

Similar in narrative to New Life, Magic Mountain pulls itself away from its hill-top position more successfully spilling expanses of orange and blue paint that are pulled and scraped down into a dark pool of ultramarine. The depth of field here is deliberately confusing invoking the viewers sense of spatial perception and triggering an unconscious impulse to enter the virtual world of the painting to investigate the nature of its three dimensionality. A conjoined set of mismatched dwelling structures with elevations of pinks, browns and green are set into the mountain at its highest point. Whether by design or because of the mound’s upward thrust they lean perilously forward and echo the awkward posture borne in New Life.
Follower takes an epic view of Climent’s otherworldly landscape and bathes it in a luminous array of hot orange, lilac and pink. A mountain hidden from view casts a long purple shadow in the middle ground suggesting nightfall arriving. Its effect is to deepen the perspective and heightens the drama of the searing heat and golden light. The surface of Follower is rich in textures and layers of painting that remain visible through one another. The result is a shimmering work of unique depth and life.

The abundant poetry in Climent’s painting is partly a result of his use of the traditional and romantic format of landscape painting combined with the sheer visual pleasure in his rich colour palette. Embedded in these conventions are the heretofore mentioned strange and eccentric elements that give away his self-critical processes of checks and balances. What stands out is his carefully mined and wonderful glossary of titles for his works, with gems such as Gimle, Alfeim and Andlang. Giving titles to paintings could be a hard-won phenomenon of concrete poetry. It is no elementary task to take the topographical shape, onomatopoeic sound and etymological origin of a word and somehow match those elements with each other and a tangible work of art. It is an unusual and appreciated delight to enjoy the titles of these works while enjoying the works themselves. This attention to detail testifies to Climent’s commitment and value as an artist, as much as his accomplishment and ability to paint.

Cristín Leach | Review of Latitudes | Dunamaise Arts Centre | The Sunday Times | February 2018

Cork-Based painter Tom Climent has been honing his approach to abstraction for more than 20 years. This show which features fantastical landscapes in which mountains and rocky outcrops take the form of multifaceted geometric structures. They sit under pink, purple or turquoise skies, jewel-like, in shades of cerise pink, green, orange, blue and golden yellow. Climent is a remarkable colourist. His work is quietly uplifting, even spiritual. It offers a glimpse into another beautiful and majestic dimension. The paintings have one-word titles. Plume features a shape like a cluster of colourful crystals, a rare geode in an alien vista. Butte and Mantle show a pair of rounded boulders. Andlang depicts a more traditional mountain-scape, seen through an entirely pink lens. Climent uses sand and plaster to give texture to the surfaces. There are no intimations of buildings in this show. These rainbow crags seem to have been sprung from the artist’s imagination but feel real, unidentified places that appear ancient and new at once. Strong, inspirational painting from one of Ireland’s best abstractionists.

Dunamaise Arts Centre, Church Road, Portlaoise, Co.Laois, Ireland     www.dunamaise.ie

Niall MacMonagle | What Lies Beneath | Meridian by Tom Climent | The Sunday Independent | 2016

The sun, that 4.6 billion-year-old, far-away ( 149 million kilometres away ) burning star, and now 300 degrees hotter than it was when it was born doesn’t always deliver.

Irish summers are hit-and-miss; ones, when the sun shone all the time, are still remembered. 1976 was good. On 29 June that year Boora, County Offaly, saw 32.5 degrees Celsius, the highest recorded 20th-century temperature on this island.

Tom Climent’s recent work contains sunshine. Born and based in Cork, he says: “My father is from Valencia, Spain and we used to spend a lot of time there as kids. And I’ve lived there.”

Working in a roof-top, open air studio reminded him that Malaga winter skies are always blue and “the bright intense light there and the colours just fed into the work.”

Recent work is “grounded in landscape”, but they are imaginary even idealised places. Valleys, mountains, fields seen from above, are all elements in them. As are structures that you might find on a journey – shelters, sheds, out-houses and “this idea of a journey, of searching for something relates, for me, to the act of paintings itself.”

Climent loved both science and art at school. “One, based on logic, structure and reason, the other embracing chance, spontaneity and accident.” Later he abandoned engineering for art. From large “gestural, figurative, expressionist” paintings he realised, aged 30, that “shape, structure, colour” would be his focus.

“I made a deliberate effort to try and work small and contain the energy I was trying to convey, to structure the work in a much more deliberate and controlled way”, he says.

This image, Meridian, took months.

Structure or colour which came first? ” Structure but only just.” It reminds him of a “three-dimensional sundial, almost, and I wanted to call it something that would reflect both a sense of time and also the sun or passage of the sun across the sky and how this shapes or day.”

No hard-edge here. The canvas is alight and, using liquid gold leaf, “a distillation of the glow of the sun.” Climent’s creation glows with a beautiful and glorious warmth.

Mark Ewart | Introduction to In its Reflection | A catalogue accompanying the solo exhibition at Solomon Fine Art | 2016

Tom Climent is an archetypal ‘painters’ painter’. His work evolves from an intensive process of constructing and de-constructing surfaces, until a harmonious balance of colour and texture is achieved. And like any artist who pays serious attention to the tactility of paint, Climent’s work firstly captures the viewers’ attention from a distance and then rewards that interest, when the work is studied up close.

Such fidelity to the painted surface is not to suggest for one moment that Climent is defined exclusively by his repertoire of painterly skills; or that he appeals only to fellow artists. These paintings will captivate the public just as much as the art establishment. There is a beguiling universality at play, where the paintings shimmer with an ethereal glow and inner world that resides behind the picture plane. This world is full of uncharted spaces on the cusp of discovery. We drift from place to place, disoriented by the oddly familiar, soundtracked by an unfamiliar Space Oddity.

Crucially, it is this ability to construct images that are evocative of some unnamed place from an undetermined time, which draws the viewer ever deeper into the sonorous depths of the artwork. A penumbral mist conceals details and features in these ‘landscapes’, adding an old-world patina or glow that belongs to a much older era (notwithstanding the modernist aesthetic that keeps the work relevant to contemporary tastes).

Climent’s working process evolves from analysis of geometric shapes – be they cuboid, pyramid or dodecahedron – and from there, experimentation and serendipity takes over. Lines and planes within the limits and laws of perspective collide like fractals, melding together to anchor the structure – on top of which, paint clings like magnetic quicksilver. But these structures morph into something much more beautiful and lyrical than even the most tantalising of mathematical equations.

The central structural motifs that populate each painting are connected, sharing similar traits and inferences. For the artist, these structures can evoke a metaphorical symbolism – such as a bowl, vessel shape or languid pool. The ground underneath could be a courtyard, with hazy mountains in the background, swathed by the effects of aerial perspective. But Climent feels that these are places of refuge – a cabin or bothy for the weary traveller – or perhaps a sanctuary for the hermit to escape blizzards of urban white noise. But the artist is refreshingly egalitarian, happy for the viewer to see what they like in the imagery.

The irresistible urge is to accompany the artist/explorer on his journey, to navigate the maze by finding a route guided either by the pearlescent dawn or the smouldering twilight. Through this iridescent countryside, each painting is a site to rest and take in the view, until eventually, we arrive at ‘a place found’ (to borrow a title from a 2014 exhibition).

Painting can be a cruel and unforgiving process when the materials are uncooperative, or when an artist faces a crisis of confidence. Conversely, paint and colour can easily yield when a rhythm is found. There can be little doubt, that on the strength of this exhibition, Tom Climent has not only found his rhythm, he has well and truly arrived at his destination.

Mark Ewart

Mark Ewart lectures at CIT Crawford College of Art and Design. He is also an art teacher, writer and artist.

Solomon Fine Art, Balfe Street, Dublin 2, Ireland          www.solomonfineart.ie