Emilie Clark
In regard to her well-researched and delicately rendered works, New York-based artist Emilie Clark says, "since 2003 I’ve inserted myself into the works and lives of Victorian women scientists and naturalists including Mary Ward, Mary Treat, Martha Maxwell, and Ellen Henrietta Richards. Treating my studio like a laboratory, I literally restage much of the research these women undertook. This accumulative process tends to turn the studio into an embodiment of each historical project I take on, and in turn transform. Transformation is one of the underlying connections across the projects—even before I began working this way, my work had involved liminal states, things in the act of becoming, defamiliarizing and non-linear narratives, close observation and the questioning of categories. This investigative activity and my archival research and writing inform a practice that involves painting, drawing, installation and sculpture. The practices of these women and mine involve careful testing sustained empirical inquiry, structured interaction with daily life, and ultimately world building. As an artist I am dedicated to a hands-on empirical approach, where one attempts to achieve one’s goals and gain knowledge through one’s own daily life, and where one attempts to understand and embrace the interconnectivity of all things."
Clark …
In regard to her well-researched and delicately rendered works, New York-based artist Emilie Clark says, "since 2003 I’ve inserted myself into the works and lives of Victorian women scientists and naturalists including Mary Ward, Mary Treat, Martha Maxwell, and Ellen Henrietta Richards. Treating my studio like a laboratory, I literally restage much of the research these women undertook. This accumulative process tends to turn the studio into an embodiment of each historical project I take on, and in turn transform. Transformation is one of the underlying connections across the projects—even before I began working this way, my work had involved liminal states, things in the act of becoming, defamiliarizing and non-linear narratives, close observation and the questioning of categories. This investigative activity and my archival research and writing inform a practice that involves painting, drawing, installation and sculpture. The practices of these women and mine involve careful testing sustained empirical inquiry, structured interaction with daily life, and ultimately world building. As an artist I am dedicated to a hands-on empirical approach, where one attempts to achieve one’s goals and gain knowledge through one’s own daily life, and where one attempts to understand and embrace the interconnectivity of all things."
Clark has had solo shows at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV, the Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee, MN, and at the Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Children’s Museum of Art, New York, NY, the San Jose Museum of Arts, San Jose, NM, the Weatherspoon Museum Biennial, Greensboro, NC, and the Palo Alto Arts Center, Palo Alto, CA. In 2010 Clark was the first Artist in Residence at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, which culminated in an exhibition in the Steinhardt Conservatory. Her work has been featured in many publications, including Bomb, Printed Project, and Cabinet Magazine, and has been reviewed in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Art in America, and Art Week. Clark is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pollock Krasner and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio fellowship.
Courtesy of Morgan Lehman Gallery
Childrenʼs Museum of the Arts, New York, NY
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany
Biblioteque Nationale, Paris, France
The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA
New York Public Library, New York, NY
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Harris Collection, Brown University, Providence, RI
Smith College, North Hampton, MA
University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
University of Indiana, Bloomington, IN
Mills College, Oakland, CA
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
University of California, San Francisco, CA
University of California, San Diego, CA
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA
Pavement, Berkeley, CA
CalSteam, San Francisco, CA
Norwest Bank, San Francisco, CA
Burr, Pilger and Mayer, San Francisco, CA
