Open Studio - the paintings of Emily Clark

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Butterflies & Sunsets

Red Admiral

One of those stunning sunsets that I never experienced in London - only happens in Devon!

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Wildflower Photos

Yellow Toadflax

Spear Thistle

Viper's Bugloss

Spring Cinqefoil

Cuckoo Flower or Ladies Smock

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Vivid Yellow Against Vivid Blue

Gorse Bush, Devon, March 2007

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Amazing Devon Sky

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Puffin, Kingfisher, Green Woodpecker & Avocet

Drawings enhanced on photo shop

: Name: Emy; Location: Okehampton, Devon, United Kingdom

I'm a happy person. I love living in Devon. I think I'm a good photographer and not a bad painter. Sometimes it is best to be modest. Oh and my favourite animals are cows.

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Canvas before me, colours (still in tubes) laid out, brush held fast in left hand, Boards of Canada - unfortunate name in this context - resonating up to the roof lights . . . I realized the other night in my studio that in a sense I am a patriot before I am a painter. Or, better, I am a patriot who paints. Explain, explain! . . . Simple: this is not the bellicose statement of some person on the far right (the first interpretation which most would place upon it, no doubt). Far from it. I love not so much the Nation - but, literally, the country, the countryside, the coasts, the skies, the flora and fauna, in short the land which sent Edward Thomas to his death and which, in more recent times, has been recorded so well in the work, for example, of Richard Mabey. The subject of this love is, of course, disappearing, piece by piece. But large amounts remain and , one imagines, will always survive. And yet physical destruction is not the only concern. The danger, in a world so materially distracted, so vicarious - the very Apple environment which hooks me as much as anyone - is that we are not sufficiently 'out there'. That we no longer live or look upon the world as we should. And while this sentiment is hardly new it is still a matter of increasing urgency. I paint because I have to, but also for kindred spirits, patriots in kind.