When form meets chaos
Artist turns throwaway ink into abstract art.
MABONENG PRECINCT – In Frederick Clarke’s latest solo exhibition, Scrap Ink, he transforms a pot of throwaway ink into abstract works of art, thanks to an “inexplicable” creative process.
Clarke regularly goes to a lithography studio in White River called The Artist’s Press. A few months ago, he noticed a tin that had ‘scrap ink’ scrawled on it. Upon inspection, Clarke discovered that this tin contained discarded printing ink.
“I was very excited by the idea of recycling and mathematics… It reminded me of the equation minus times minus equals plus; two negatives make a positive. I love that principal because it has a resonance with recycling. Two useless things can be connected and then transformed.”
According to Clarke, using the ink was mathematical in that the tin had randomly combined colours; it was a matter of selecting different sections of it with a palette knife, then spreading the toffee-like substance over plastic to reveal colours in the tin.
Clarke maintains that his work is not about him, and that it’s separate from him. “The less people know about me the better… I don’t really want to talk about me, I’d much rather talk to you about the world… I’m not denying that I made the artwork, it’s just that I’ve chosen to have experiences in life that equip me with energy to actually make these things.”
One such experience was a two-week stint in Peru where he undertook a hallucinogenic ayahuasca workshop. This turned out to be “paradigm shifting”.
“It blew my mind out the back of my head and opened up my heart… ayahuasca gave me what felt like infinity,” he said.
Clarke also likens his Scrap Ink artworks to QR codes. “In the same way the work isn’t about me, those marks are like QR codes… Form [ink] meets chaos [image].” He added that his artwork was “completely abstract” and that it contained no subliminal meaning or representation.
Clarke said he wanted to “intensify and distil the colours” that were in the ‘scrap ink’ tin, and reveal them in a way that’s accessible. This involved a lot of trial and error. “The prints weren’t easy to make but it was very natural at the same time… My creative process is mysterious, I’m not thinking at all, but at the same time I’m highly focused. It’s inexplicable.”
Details: 072 252 7763; rubixcube.maboneng@gmail.com; Rubixcube Gallery, 264 Fox Street, Arts on Main, Maboneng Precinct.
