Clark Stoeckley
Salmiya, Kuwait + Taos, NM
Reflective Rumination
Ink and colored pencil
25” x 19”, framed
2020
$500
About
Clark Stoeckley is an interdisciplinary artist and activist working in photography, drawing, mural painting, performance, video, and interactive media. His latest work includes photographs of stray cats in the Middle East and vibrant geometric abstract paintings. As a courtroom artist he authored a graphic novel The United States vs. Private Chelsea Manning. These drawings appeared in Newsweek, The Nation, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, VICE, and PBS. His work has been shown at the International Spy Museum (Washington D.C.), Pratt Manhattan Gallery (NYC), Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis, Revolt Gallery (Taos), Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery (NYC), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), Hartware Medien Kunst Verein (Dortmund), and Contemporary Art Platform (Kuwait). His work has been featured in ARTnews, Hyperallergic, New York Magazine, Associated Press, and The Wall Street Journal. He earned an MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Art from Brooklyn College and a BFA in Studio Art from Webster University. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art & Graphic Design at the American University of Kuwait.
Artist Statement
My tenth-floor apartment in Kuwait is just mere meters from the minaret of a neighboring mosque. At first, the five daily adhans rattled me as they foreshadowed and overlapped one another to create sonic collisions. Over time I came to appreciate the layered discord from these reminders of thankfulness and humility. Distraught by violence and vitriol on the news and social media, I desired a departure from political arguments and superficial platitudes. Through meditational drawing I seek to save my own psychological and spiritual well-being, as well as transmit joy and bliss. My goal is to discover harmony from chaotic asymmetry, rhythmic disruptions, and disparate influences. I blend and distort imagery inspired by an amalgamation of motifs such as stained glass, psychedelia, science, street art and sacred geometry. These synesthesia-stimulated drawings depict the kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria of my lucid subconscious and divine introspective explorations.
Art from Clark Stoeckley in other TAAC exhibitions