The Arts House

This week Conor Tallon spoke with Dr. Michael Waldron, Assistant Curator at the Crawford Gallery in Cork, about Paradise! Existing somewhere between representation and abstraction, between the real and spirit worlds, Eden (2019) by Tom Climent is exemplary of the artist’s practice in its distinctive style and modulation of colour.

Adopting a landscape form befitting its evocative title – the Earthly paradise described in the Book of Genesis – it is geometric in nature and beautifully coloured. On closer inspection, we discover that it is a work not only in oil paint, but with plaster and sand also applied to the canvas. This gives Eden its particular texture and embodies Climent’s process, which “embraces both logic and reason and also chance and accident.”

Referencing landscape, various types of structures and natural phenomena, the artist states that “Eden is very much part of the series of paintings I have been working on over the last ten years or so. I feel it is an important piece within this group of paintings.”

Tom Climent (b.1970) is a painter based in Cork City. His work over the past twenty-five years or so has varied from paintings of figurative, urban, and landscape subjects. In his own words, he considers that his “work generally tends to be suggestive. I feel it absorbs places I’ve been to, experiences I’ve had and ideas and images I come across.”

Eden (2019) by Tom Climent is featured in NEW THREADS: Acquisitions 2021 in our Gibson Galleries (Floor 1) until 5 September. Free entry | Open daily.