Biography

Shyanne Clarke is a multidisciplinary artist. Clarke explores marks and fluidity in her work, animating paint and line to tell a layered story. Inspired by the Romantic Sublime era, Clarke has currently been using the sea as a faithful subject matter to capture its essence and human connectedness. Her fascination with the ocean stems from growing up by its waves, acknowledging its story beginning before us and continuing long after us. Clarke is a fine art teacher at Art School Co. on the Sunshine Coast. And currently resident artist at Subtropic Studio for Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance supported by Sunshine Coast council, as well as one of the 2022 cohort for The Path. 

“The ocean has a depth figuratively and literally that I am eternally fascinated by. It parallels our own conscious | unconscious. Its essence is extremely difficult to capture, forcing me to lean in and really see it. I use negative space, and experiment with the fluidity of paint, mimicking its own nature and that of the sea, creating drips & spontaneous marks.” – Shyanne Clarke

Exhibition Statement

Shyanne Clarke’s exhibition LINGER, features a new body of work with the ocean as its subject. Created during a year-long residency at sub tropic studio, a creative space located in a subterranean bus station- an initiative of the Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance and supported by Sunshine Coast Council.

At its inception the series was informed by charcoal studies exploring the technical rendering of the ocean, attempting to capture movement, light and shadow. From these early studies large acrylic and oil works on canvas were developed, further exploring colour, temperature and fluidity, the characteristics of the media being incorporated into the portrayal of the nature of the sea.

Clarke uses negative space to create impactful depth and contrast at horizon lines. In the charcoal works Below, Wonder Emporium, and Silent she employs abrupt, abstract marks within the form of the waves speak to the surging nature of the tide and power of breaking water.

Pastel pops hovering above the horizon offer oblique reference to the impact of climate change and global warming. They allude to the change in the balance of gases in the homosphere, in the temperature, and the impact on the sea and its environs, above and below the surface. The artist posits- “what colour would these impacts be? What shape?” Clarke employs these surrealist pastel bands across the series of large canvases. Here they appear, dripping, brightly bleeding into the troposphere.

The works Submerge and Rogue Wave feature small barcode-like marks within the water, offering a duality between society’s representation of data, and the marks of reflection of the sun on water through a photographic lens.

For this new body of work Clarke has experimented across multiple mediums, from acrylics to oils on canvas and charcoal works on paper, attempting to capture the depths, and the human response to the power of the sea. The works encourage the observer to pause, to observe the layers and marks and mediums. To linger.