Making art or teaching art? -- the dilemma for Ajax artist, Neville Clarke

(My October 2011 Artist Profile for the Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser)

Ajax artist, Neville Clarke finds himself in the dilemma of many artists who teach but also wish to maintain an active and productive fine art career: how do you find time and energy for both? Clarke teaches figure drawing and painting at Centennial College in Toronto as well as adult figure drawing classes at the Varley Art Gallery in Unionville. He has a well-established career as a figure painter – with numerous awards, one-man shows and multiple participation in juried shows plus involvement in various art societies. However, his artistic output has seriously dried up over the past 5 years because of the drain on his physical and mental resources that full-time teaching demands.

Clarke was born in Jamaica and immigrated to Canada in 1974 as a 14-year-old, with the family settling in Orillia. An art teacher recognized his drawing talent and urged him to enroll in a painting class in which she was an instructor at the local Georgian College location. After being voted “artist of the year” in high school, he studied fine art at Sheridan College in Brampton for one year, then moved on to OCADU, doing his 4th year at the Florence, Italy campus and graduating with high honours. And then launched into an award-and-accolade-strewn career as a figure painter. He showed his work regularly and sold well and joined numerous art associations, becoming, in fact, the president of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour -- and even travelled to England on their behalf to make a presentation at Canada House. At that event he met Prince Charles and was invited to his home to see examples of his watercolours.

But Clarke’s career took a turn when he was invited to join the faculty of the fine arts department at Centennial College and he threw himself into teaching, and over the years, and with the increased workload, has had less and less time for his creative pursuits.

But, he feels he is on the verge of new painting initiatives – maybe even boundary-expanding, edgier (for him) breakthroughs in his figurative work, in terms of media and conceptualization. Check out the work of this hugely-talented painter by Googling him, or find him on the website of the Roberts Gallery, Toronto.