Clark Stoeckley
Salmiya, Kuwait
Boundless Circumstance
ink and colored pencil on cotton rag paper
24” x 18” x 0”
2021
$500
About
Clark Stoeckley is an interdisciplinary artist, activist, educator, and curator 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 geometrical abstract murals. 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. Clark has exhibited at apexart (NYC), International Spy Museum (Washington D.C.), Pratt Manhattan Gallery (NYC), Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis, Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery (NYC), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), Hartware Medien Kunst Verein (Dortmund), and Contemporary Art Platform (Kuwait). His work has also been featured in ARTnews, Hyperallergic, New York Magazine, Associated Press, and The Wall Street Journal. Clark earned an MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College and a BFA in Studio Art from Webster University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art & Graphic Design at the American University of Kuwait.
Artist Statement
Distraught by violence and vitriol on the news and social media, I desired an escape from political arguments and superficial platitudes – particularly those following mass shootings. I sought to save my psychological and spiritual well-being through meditational drawing and hopefully transmit feelings of joy and bliss to others. 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 semi-lucid subconscious and divine introspective explorations. Or, simply put, they originate from doodles I make when I’m in a meeting.
Art from Clark Stoeckley in other TAAC exhibitions