Vera Ryan | An Artist in the Painterly Tradition | Essay for Decade ( A retrospective catalogue published in 2006)

Tom Climent’s stunning degree show in 1995 showed great promise. Many degree shows do that but not every graduate is able to susain their practice or their promise. Nonetheless, many people were quietly optimistic about Tom and correctly so. Ten years on, his work is still enthralling and he has extended his vocabulary in new ways.

He works in the painterly tradition. The earlier paintings were anchored in response to great masterpieces of the Western canon, seen in reproduction by Tom. Whether looking at Velazquez or Delacroix, he would find a ‘jumping off’ point which left him free to create his own gestures, atmosphere and surface. Unable to  properly see the surface and textures in reprodctions, he was free to make them up. The loose paint handling and rich surfaces of his tutor Jill Dennis’s paintings may have been an encouragement. ’I really wanted to make the textures rich. I wanted people to have a desire to pick up the paint itself.’

In some paintings such as Martha’s House (1995), Black Supper (1995) or Honey Queen (1995) we see him excercising tremendous confidence. He was partly inspired by Jackson Pollock: ‘I woudn’t like Pollock that much now but there is heroic stuff that is appealing when you see him painting – the gestural stuff, the stream of consciousness. One of the most important things is that sense of creation. It is almost like you are not in charge. You are in a relationship with the painting that guides you. You never know wha is going to come out. I feel it requires a lot of discipline. I remember Jo Allen, my first real tutor, saying you have to turn up everyday. You never know when the magic is going to come. But if you are there you will catch it.

Rather like Pollock, Tom often works partly on the floor. He does not work from life or from drawings, despite the years of life drawing he did with Jo. He often started the large canvases by hanging them on the wall, loosely blocking in the composition with acrylics. Later, he would put the canvas on the floor and pour on paint.. Harnessing his own emotion and the poured paint, his intuitive dialogue with the old masters would emerge in energetic sweeps of paint. Unlike many contemporary artists steeped in the process of quotation, Tom never dallied or juggled with his source. He worked away from quotation, so to speak, returning to it indebted for it’s anchorage. Many of the resulting paintings were breathtakingly beautiful. The scale was almost large and the music fast during those early years after graduation.

These paintings from 1995 to 2000 were energetic and exciting, revealing a richly sensuous pictoral sensibility. Figures seldom seem to be still and had an extraordinary dramatic immediacy, almost sharing their physical space with the viewers. It was as if the Baroque was being reinvented. Many of the paintings were in response to 17th century paintings. Tom saw Rembrandt in Amsterdam in 1991. It was this trip that made him creatively aware of the history of painting. When speaking of his interest in the old masters, it is striking how he never seems to veer towards narrative interpretations. It was the textures of the Rembrandts which enthused him most. In London, when he saw Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus (1601), the anchor painting for Black Supper (1995), he was surprised at how small it was. Later when he won the Tony O’Malley Award, he was able to travel in Italy for a few months in 1998. He did not get drawn into psychological interpretations of the paintings. ‘Every time I stood before a painting I liked I imagined the painter standing there painting it.’

The titles of his own paintings come after execution and perform the function of dramatising and contemporising them. It is not important to the painter that the viewer feels the same emotion that he had when making the pictures. But the making of the paintings is driven by emotion and chance. Rather than identify these emotions, even to himself, Tom says ‘ I suppose trust is big. When I paint it brings a sense of fearlessness. I place my trust in the work. If I do I feel it will be ok. It can be like a singer giving a great concert. That’s not to say I don’t criticise my work. I probably do so more now than in earlier works. They were much more spontaneous, unquestioning. Nowadays I tend to spend much longer on individual pieces, even though there are exceptions, where I’m constantly reworking and changing until I feel the piece works. But it can vary from piece to piece. There are no hard and fast rules, each one has it’s own personality. It’s finding that and allowing that to be as it is’

That attunement to the imperatives of his practice results in paintings taking very different lengths of time to execute. For example, in Alexander and Sisygambis (2002) he had plannedto put layers and layers of paint on the surface. But having worked on the canvas on the wall he recognised very quickly that he had an image which ‘had that magic’. So he left the painting as it was. Two fgures, a leaping hybrid animal shape which has appeared in other paintings like Armistice (2000) and a small still one, had huge presence. He came across the names Alexander and Sisygambis in a book around the same time and felt they matched the work, without there being any need to probe the story for equivalents. His self distancing from narratives and archetypes is clearly important for his creatiity.

By contrast with this rapidity of execution, Obscura (2002), which is 9’ by 5’ and is in the Cork City Council collection, took much longer to complete. He covered the canvas with a sap green first. He then held it upright and poured a dark industrial paint, which he had mixed up in large quantities, over the green. Literally going with the flow by turning a painting on it’s side also characterises the approach of the English artist Alexis Harding who also shares a desire to make emotion incarnate in the paint. When this treatment of Obscura was dry Tom brought in the reds. He was still uncertain. ‘It wasn’t my plan for it to be a landscape. I had in mind that very big Courbet [Burial atOrnans(1819)] in my mind. It would be the mood of it, or the tone of it I was after. That would have resonated within me. I wouldn’t look at the painting again. I would be trying to express the emotion that the painting aroused in me.’ The orange lights near the remaining green space suggest night lights. A dusty landscape had formed. In Buried on the ground(2002), figue and ground are fused. The gorgeous red, the red of pure pigment, glows and is made righter by the dark colurs surrounding it. These dark colours became like shadows, intensifying the drama, operating like chiaroscuro. This piece like Obscura pointed to a new direction in Climent’s work.

Tom’s father Angel Climent, a musician and composer from Valencia, settled in Ireland nearly 40 years ago. Tom has been living on and off in southern Spain, near Malaga since 2002, spending a few months at a time there. ‘I would have gone regularly as a child, most of my relatives live in Spain. Every time I go back it feels like going home.’ In an extended stay during 2003/4, a great change happened in Climent’s  work, which had perhaps been hinted at in previous works. Doing the reverse of what Tony O’Malley did when he went to paint in the Bahamian sun in the ealy 70’s, Tom changd scale too – he began to work small. ‘I wanted the freedom to change. I didn’t want to become a prisoner of my own work. I wanted a practice where I worked slowly and steadily. Previously  I’d throw myself into big paintings and then do nothing for ages. Working that size takes so much energy emotionally. I used to be drained afterwards.’

It was the kind of studio he had in Malaga that helped as well in this new direction. It was effectively an outdoor studio – the roof of the house he lived in. As is characteristic of his practice, he had no preconcieved ideas about what way the paintings would go. But being surrounded by landscape and in a different environment, his work started to change from what was previously a mostly interior structure to a more external one. Inevitably, like George Campbell who painted in the area for several months of the year in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s,Tom was struck by the difference between Spanish light and Irish light. In Malaga, the winter skies were blue all day and the light sharp. He was near the sea, surrounded by mountains. He found that the suggestion of landscape had become a major part of this new work. A more abstract sensibility began to structure these pieces,  coupled with a heightened sense of colour marked this series out as a major departure in Climent’s work.

As he prepares for the transition into the seond decade of his practice, it is tempting to see significant themes and motifs in the artist’s work. Climent is elusive in this respect. Would light and dark, literally and metaphorically, be his major preoccupation? Maybe mortality? But it seems established that he does not follow the model of the artist who mines a myth or pre-occuption to nuture his creativity. He adheres to the heroic model of struggling with the material, wrestling with the paint and doing so in a wholly un-ironic way. He may prefer to continue to trust the dynamic between himself and the painting process. It has served him well.

Brian Fallon | Introduction to Decade (A retrospective catalogue published in 2006)

TOM CLIMENT is a highly individual artist, still relatively youthful, who is rather out of step with current fashion and is all the better for that. Instead of playing cerebral games with his material, he paints for the love and also – I should say – for the fun of it. I have tracked his progress, intermittently, since I awarded him the Victor Treacy Prize some years ago, against talented competition.

Since then his style has changed to a certain extent, outwardly if not in essentials. Broadly speaking, it stresses “painterly” values and broad, sometimes laden brushstrokes, and originally it had a certain, what I can only call neo-Baroque tendency. The tonality was often rather dark and sultry with slashes of brighter colour, suggesting a modernised version of chiaroscuro; the subject was not precisely figurative but suggested figurative themes. I had the impression, right or wrong, that he had been looking hard at Spanish painting, and perhaps at Baroque painting in general.

His latest works maintain the painterly breadth and freedom, but the previous rather dark – and slightly sinister – subject matter has largely vanished and has been replaced by a type of self-sufficient and slightly enigmatic imagery. It is strongly suggestive in itself, as before, but gives no guidelines as to any specific “meaning.” These pictures, to state the obvious, are not “about” anything but are more or less self-generating organisms. They speak the language of paint and not the language of hackneyed association.

It has not been an easy period for young painters, though the times are changing – much more basically and much more Quickly, in fact, than established opinion or established values would admit. Even as recently as six years ago, we were still being fed the familiar cant that painting as such had mostly become Old Hat and that conceptualism (much of it allegedly based on the example of Marcel Duchamp), installation ism and a multitude of other -isms had taken its place. Even photography, which had been doing all right on its own, was supposed somehow to be part of this New Wave. The art colleges opportunistically went along with the trend -indeed many of them actively propagated it, largely for their own ends.

They, and a lot of others, now look like being left with mud on their faces. Painting is back – almost uncritically so in fact, as you can see from the auction prices paid for what is often no more than a rehash of hackneyed traditional styles. But of course, in reality, it never really went out – those born to paint just painted on, no matter what fashion said. Tom Climent is one of a generation which stuck to its guns and is coming into its own.

Brian Fallon was art critic at The Irish Times until his retirement in 1998.

He was a founder board member of IMMA, (1989 – 1995), and writes regularly about Irish Art.

Nikki Walsh | Rising Stars | Select Magazine | 2005

Just who will be the big names in tomorrow’s art world?

Predicting who will make it in the art world isn’t easy. When we approached Nuala Fenton of the Fenton gallery, Kevin Kavanagh of the Kevin Kavanagh gallery, auctioneer and valuer Ian Whyte and portraitist James Hanley RHA for the inside track on who to watch, they were spoilt for choice. “There are so many good artists out there,” says Nuala Fenton.

They had their reservations too. “It’s not just a question of talent,” says Ian. “There are trends in the art market just as there are in other areas. Some subject matters will be more popular than others and some painters will be more fashionable than others.” Luck also plays its part. “Some artists get snapped up by a gallery straight away, while others have to work really hard to get noticed,” says Nuala. “Artists can wait a long, long time for success,” says Jan. “It’s not uncommon for them to reach their 50s or 60s before their work takes off.”

It’s a fickle business, according to Ian, “An artist can be popular for years, then they can vanish, or come back into vogue in their 80s.” So what makes an artist stand out from the crowd? “I look for some kind of energy in the work”, says Nuala. “The work has to be confident and convincing and there must be something to mull over for a while – it has to be engaging.”

James Hanley believes true artistry is in the blood. “Natural painters are instinctive. They don’t have to stick to the rules and they aren’t afraid to make mistakes – they just let the magic happen.”

So who are the big names of the future?

Nuala Fenton on Tom Climent

Nuala Fenton founded the Fenton Gallery in Cork five years ago, after a lengthy career in the arts including a 12-year stint at the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery in Cork.

When abstract painter Tom Climent graduated from the Crawford School of Art, his degree show caused quite a stir in Cork. Now well known in the city, he has yet to establish himself in other parts of the country. “He is an innately good painter and a fantastic colourist,” says Nuala. “His work is developing all the time, which makes him all the more interesting to follow. You can really see the progression. There used to be a figurative element to it but now he has moved away from any narrative -he doesn’t rely on any being or dialogue.”

He’s not afraid to play with scale either. Originally a studio painter of large works, he shifted to a dramatically smaller scale when he began painting outdoors from the roof of his apartment. His works are pure drama, but they are also emotionally suggestive. “There is a real sense of energy and drama about his work, but there is also something very emotional about it and it’s very subtle.”

Now in his late 30s, he divides his time between Ireland and Spain. His work starts at €1,500, while larger pieces sell for as much as €8,000.

“Tom Climent is an example of an artist who is consistent,” says Nuala. “He doesn’t take big price hikes and his level of productivity remains steady – he has a show about every two years.” Tom Climent recently exhibited at the Fenton Gallery in a group show with Sarah Walker. The Fenton Gallery stocks some of his work.

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Mark Ewart | Review of New Paintings | Fenton Gallery | The Irish Times | 2003Over a relatively short period of time, Tom Climent has achieved a considerable amount as a painter, picking up a number of high-profile plaudits along the way.

What is most striking about Climent’s paintings is the way in which they declare a dramatic physicality while conversely appearing to be quite subtle in their ambition. The ‘action within appears transitional, a moment frozen, where the players have vacated the stage, and we are left in their absence to inhabit a strange, discordant place. Within these spaces Climent allows rich and varied paint surfaces to do battle.

In the large painting Obscura, the subject appears to be a coastline setting rendered in twilight colours. In places, the paint is softly layered, allowing the canvas to glow underneath, but a menacing black rectangular shape, which covers approximately three-quarters of the painting, challenges this. In Venetian Concert, the paint is applied more thickly and has a molten property which conveys a lava-like surface – an appropriate metaphor for the energy’ within this exhibition.

Alannah Hopkin | Review of New Paintings | Fenton Gallery | The Irish Examiner | 2003

Another brush with Climent

TOM CLIMENT is known for the large scale of his painting, and his new show at Fenton Gallery Cork (Wandesford Quay, February 7 to 28) runs true to form.

The largest work, Obscura, is nine feet by five, and several of the others have one side measuring six feet. I spoke to Climent shortly after the paintings had been trans-ported from his studio on Sullivan’s Quay to the gallery.

It was the first time the artist had been able to view all 10 works at the same time, as there is not enough space in his studio to look at more than one or two.

The show, which will also includes smaller works on paper in the vaults, represents two years’ work.

Once again, Climent has produced an impressive body of work, that moves his painting forward into a strange realm, hovering between figurative, landscape and abstract.

While he continues to admire the Old Masters; including Caravaggio, he is painting in a much freer way, and has moved towards a more modernist structure.

This young artist’s work has been something of a sensation ever since the huge works in his degree show at the Crawford College of Art in 1995, which sold out immediately to established collectors and public venues.

In 1996, Tom Climent received the Victor Treacy Award, and was chosen by art critic Brian Fallon to exhibit in a solo show at the Temple Bar Gallery the following year.

His 1998 solo show, Dancing Parade, inspired by the work of Degas, at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork, was yet another sell-out.

Climent is a pleasant, modest young man, apparently quite unimpressed by his own success. He talks about painting with a passion. One work, Obscura, which moves from light to dark as the eye travels from left to right across nine feet of canvas, appears to be a kind of cityscape, or distant view of a port at night, a red sky above an half-lit area that recedes into darkness.

Of it, Climent comments: “I wanted a big sweep, and a movement from light to dark. People see a city in it, and it certainly has a landscape feel to it.

“But I like to leave it open-ended. I think it is more interesting for people to look at a painting and work it out for themselves, to stop and wonder what it’s about.”

Like many of the paintings in this show, Obscura combines areas outlined by straight edges, with looser kind of painting.

Some of the works use concrete, plaster or builder’s bonding material under oil and glazes. The unusual texture of the area of black in Obscura was achieved using house-hold paint.

“The black is eggshell, from a hardware store, which I poured on to the canvas when it was on the floor, then 1 tilted it and let it run down.

“You can see the skin it formed. The painting process is important to the final look of the work. I like to include accidents that happen while I’m painting.”

Pieta is Climent’s version of the traditional study of the figure of Christ removed from the cross, with a ghostly Christ at its centre. Venetian Concert is a bold symmetrical composition which uses the paint itself to suggest the scene.

Doorway uses straight edge again, and shows the ease with which Climent fills a big canvas.