Tobias Clack

Opening Event / Wednesday 15 May, 6 -8pm
Runs / Thu 16 – Sun 26 May 2019

Tobias graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Hons) at the Australian National University in 2013. In 2011 – 12 he undertook an internship with ACT sculptor David Jensz. He has exhibited in numerous group shows in Sydney and Canberra.

Artist Statement

Tobias Clack’s drawings are an effort to represent the human figure as an entity shaped by its internal reality. To him the work, and the way it is made, is a metaphorical parallel for the nature of human existence. Just as the experiences that come through living transform and shape us every day, Tobias shapes the work with decisions to accept the marks as they are, as steps taken towards the final piece.

The visual result is human but mostly without distinct physical features so the focus rests on the obscure; an interior perception. There is no subject for each portrait the heads or half figures have evolved from the direct exploration of drawing. Each is the result of mark making without fear and pushing the paper to its limits by repeatedly drawing, scratching and erasing. As a form begins to take shape it is then almost destroyed by the next effort and only when the final work is glimpsed is enough control used to reveal the figure within the marks.