By Randi Bjornstad
Coming as she does from a family of artists — her parents, Mark Clarke and Margaret Coe are both prominent Northwest painters, her brother, Tim Clarke, is a professional musician, and she recently displayed a show of her own paintings — it would be surprising if the Karin Clarke Gallery didn’t occasionally take on the flavor of a family affair.
In fact, gallerist Clarke shows a wide variety of work by mostly Oregon artists ranging from well-known to relatively unknown, most recently show the “2018 Eugene Biennial,” a juried show that featured work by 30 artists, including at least one who had never exhibited her work before.
But often about this time of year, as summer’s frenetic activities begin to calm down with the arrival of fall, Clarke finds her attention turning toward a show by one or both of her parents.
This autumn is no exception, as she opens a show called “Classics,” featuring a selection of landscapes by her father, who died suddenly in January 2016, just days after his 80th birthday.
Most of the paintings in the “Classics” exhibit are later landscapes by Mark Clarke; this one is among the few that also includes a figure
“The idea for this show actually came more from my mom,” Karin Clarke said. “She thought this would be a good time to show some of his really typical landscapes, which often had a very soft, almost ethereal look to them.”
This exhibit “is mostly from his later work, without any hard edges, and mostly just landscapes, although I’ve included a few pieces with figures,” she said. “They really reflect the way he went about painting that lent itself perfectly to this kind of feeling.”
Her father had a habit of “having a very large number of paintings — sometimes as many as 20 — underway at once,” Clarke recalled. “He would sometimes work on several a day, coming to a point where he didn’t know what he wanted to do with one so he would move on to another. He loved layers, so he would add something and wipe it down and then work on something else.”
Willamette Valley and coastal landscapes were perennially favorite subjects for artist Mark Clarke
That method of rumination and continuation could take a year for a particular piece to be completed, she said, and although he had begun using acrylics fairly early in his career, many of his paintings look more like oils.
“That was because of the slow layers and because he developed a kind of ‘glazing’ by combining the acrylic with a gel medium that gave his work a look of transparency,” she said. “This show, which I’m calling just Classics, has a lot of those pieces.”
The selections include some muted and familiar Willamette Valley landscapes as well as some coastal views that Clarke loved to paint, and just one piece this time that features an abstracted red barn, which he often painted, possibly as a paean to his rural Junction City upbringing.
During his long career, Mark Clarke occasionally painted a red barn, a reflection of his rural Oregon upbringing
“My dad always liked to leave something to the imagination with his landscapes,” Clarke said. “He liked to say, ‘I like to let people fill in the leaves for themselves.’ “
She smiles at the memory of one artist’s reception for his work at her gallery when a visitor looked at one of his paintings and asked if it was of a person with a dog.
“He said, ‘Could be’ and then someone else came along and asked if the painting was of two people, and he said, ‘Maybe,’ ” Clarke said. “I think one of the joys for him of seeing people looking at his work was having their response be more about them than about him.”
In the same manner, what looks to her as a painting that seems distinctly of the Willamette Valley “can seem to someone else like some other place they know,” she said. “That always made him happy.”
Clarke has even had the same experience herself. Not long after her father’s death, as they chose paintings for a retrospective of his work, she and her mother found many paintings in his studio that they had never been seen before.
Told that one portrait looked just like her, Clarke looked both pleased and wistful.
“I don’t really know if it is or not,” she said then. “I would like to think so.”
Classics
What: A show of later paintings by artist Mark Clarke
When: Through Oct. 13; a reception for the show will be 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 7, during downtown Eugene’s First Friday ArtWalk
Where: Karin Clarke Gallery, 760 Willamette St., Eugene
Information: 541-684-7963 or karinclarkegallery.com
Many of Mark Clarke’s later landscapes took on an ethereal, almost transparent look, because of a painting technique he adopted during his career
