Gary Clement
Group Portrait

Group Portrait

The Carter Family’s songs of yearning and loss, the incredible swinging solos of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, the brutal, brilliant stories of Isaac Babel, the frescoes of Piero della Francesca in the Basilica of St. Francis, the illuminated manuscripts found in the Cathedral of Siena, and a metal box filled with pictures of families dressed in their late 19th- and early 20th-century Sunday best that I found by the side of the road one day while walking my dog… these are among the innumerable phenomena that inspired the paintings in Group Portrait.

A group portrait is a frozen moment in time that can capture a meeting of august personages, a band of musicians, a gathering of friends, or a family.

In the context of this show, a group portrait is a portal to history, to memory, and to the pure pleasure of being influenced by art.

— Gary Clement