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Marcus Clarke

"I'm trying to fulfill my civic role as an artist. To be relevant. While also striving for excellence in my Art Practice. Any help appreciated."

Marcus Clarke Artist
Contact

Combining
Fine Art - Puppetry - Theatre

"My life’s work in puppetry, children’s television and art creation has all been about connecting with the inner child"

Videos

Original HuP Logo
Created by Marcus
1989

Original HuP Logo
Created by Marcus
1989

I draw on historical semiotics. Imagery from a mostly illiterate world where verbal literacy combined with a kind of object, material, symbolic literacy dominated. Where people knew and shared this combined vocabulary to show who they were, form friendships, celebrate life and express themselves.

Though this language is mostly lost in terms of modern everyday use I employ it to create art, achieve wonder and to celebrate life.

Learn to Draw : Learn to See

When Marcus Clarke was 14 yrs of age his Step Father worked the night shift at the local Raleigh bicycle factory and his mother was a cleaner in a Care Home.
He is Neurodivergent, ADHD. Care Experienced 4 yrs. Including in two National Children's Homes.
See Observer Newspaper Article, Marcus Clarke, in 'the Review' right.
Marcus says: "I use Puppets, Puppet Making materials, tools and glues from my world of work as a Professional Puppet Maker. Puppetry Performance Objectives, skills and talents from my work as a Professional Puppeteer. Observations from my varied work as a Backstage Theatre Technician. My first job as a Schoolboy at the Nottingham Payhouse in 1974 through to my West End Stage Management career right up to my professional work in regional Theatres today.
I combine all these with my Fine Art skills and knowledge. Continually added to since my teenage years as an art student at Mansfield College of Art.
Materials: I use canvases, paints and drawing materials. I include found objects, puppets, toys, photo's, antiquities. Jewelry and junk to create imaginative, expressive, sometimes unsettling but always engaging art.
Genres: Sometimes I create artworks as Paintings, Collages, Assemblages, Films and Installations.
My art is not particularly Academic or Analytical. Scientific. I’ve previously explored the space between the street light and the kerb. Massively over indulged the senses. Approached art as if through the prism of mental illness. My artwork now is self expression. It directly draws on my own life’s experiences but is informed by those of my audiences. By Culture, History, Performance, Theatre and other Artistes and Artists including Duchamp, Degas, August Sander, Gerard Garouste.
As an Independent Artist I feel a Civic responsibility to Educate, Inform and Inspire. To encourage people and of all ages to be creative, to make art about what they know or don't. Drawing on their own lives, dreams. Centrally their world of work. To encourage Teenagers who don't feel suited to read-write Higher Education, for whatever reason, to seek out other creative learning opportunities. Professional work, outlets and careers in the arts too".
To advocate for the Arts, Visual, Puppetry and Theatre. To be relevant and to make a difference.

General Hospital

Marcus and Ron with Bitcoin

We Love You But

Fairy Stories for Lost Child Hoods Visual Art Exhibition 2022
13th January to 25th February.

Aladdin

Ocean Going Plastic

Pig

Exhibitions and Hangings.
2022 Selected Long List Visual Art Open.
2022 Fairy Stories for Lost Child Hoods at Mansfield Library Gallery. more
2020 Selected to Stage1. Visual Art Open.
2019 Selected to Stage1. Visual Art Open.
2017 Pre-Selected Mall Gallery. Royal Society of Marine Artists. Title Faded Beach Hut.
2017 Fisher-Patterson Gallery Gt.Yarmouth, MO Sheringham Museum. RSM Sheringham Art Exhibition - Refreshing Seaside Memories. More
2017 Floor One Gallery Nottingham RSM Sheringham Art Exhibition - Refreshing Seaside Memories.
2015 First Floor Gallery Central Library, Nottingham. The DogHorseCoat Art Exhibition and Homeless in the Puppetised City. More
2015 Surface Gallery International Postcard Show. Two works. Naval rule and Poster.
2014 The National Open Art Competition 2014 Shortlisted
2014 Homeless in the Puppetised City Art Exhibition One man show Nottingham. 13x works and Video more
2014 Surface Gallery International Postcard Show 1xPostcard Work
2013 Surface Gallery International Postcard Show 1xPostcard Work
2012 FAB Fringe Arts Bath 2012. Mis-in-Formation. 3x works exhibited. Curator Diane Ali
2011 Nottingham Castle Gallery Annual Open 2011 1x Intervention and 1x exhibited work plus Video Film made.
2011 Surface Gallery Nottingham 'Salon des Refuse's' 2x works exhibited.
2010 4 Puppetised Jackets Project and Art Exhibition. Broad Marsh Centre. more
1977 Mansfield College of Art, now Vision West Notts College. Various.

Artworks and Artifacts
Marcus's Collage and Assemblage Modern Day, Medieval Style Reliquaries as Art 2014-2019

Nail Fairy IX Cutical

Tooth Fairy

Windrush Orphans

2017-2018

Title: You're Not Going Nowhere.

Title: Howdy Stranger

This series of artworks created 2014-19 draw on older art forms like Medieval Reliquary, Well Dressing, Religious Iconography and other Sacred Art but also on Mankind’s eternal human need to share things, Keepsakes, Mementos, Souvenirs, Heirlooms, Memorials and Memories. Each work is built or made up around one central character, thing, object, with ideas and reactions radiating out of it in various degrees and volumes to create an illuminating and emotive flow that's then frozen in a visual artwork.
Right Title: NCH Sheringham Front Door. Marcus entered National Children's Home Orphanage, Hooks Hill, Sheringham, England at 4yrs of age.
Top Left Title: Orphelia Rabbit Drowned. Drowning is a birth, rebirth risk.

Other Explorations

Title - Death Defying Evel
Title - Super

Title:
Klee Angel and Elfie Pixie

Title: The Football Man

Above Title: Dainty Deities - Mouse, Bear. Above Right Title: Stuck

RSM Sheringham project and Solo Art Exhibition
Marcus Clarke's Art Exhibition of 2017
Called: RSM Sheringham Refreshing Seaside Memories

More and Short Stories

Art Writing
Title: Reading into it. Shortlisted for NOA 2014.
Marcus successfully experimented with a strand of work called 'Art Writing'. He has been BAFTA nominated for his short form composition and script editing work. Now he either incorporates this text, dialogue, conversation into the artworks themselves or into the label element of them and associated Web pages.

(Oct 2016) Exploring the Making of Reliquary's and Memento's
I found this signed picture of my White Rabbit on eBay and bought it. It's of Crabtree Rabbit (Puppet) who starred in BBC's Tricky Business Children's TV Programme of 1989 . It's signed by me, as I was the Puppeteer and voice of this puppet character and I remember signing this one as the Biro didn't work, but that's it. We also made this Puppet. When I thought about it, this signed photo and all those years ago, I realised that this signed picture was a relic of me and of that time. A different world of beliefs, emotions, ideas and ambitions. So I decided to give it the New Art Enshrinement treatment and here it is. A Treasured Relic I call 'Tricky Relic'. (Far right)
Having created one relic from an old signed Puppet Photograph of mine I decided to wholly create another from scratch and from the same year, 1989, when I was also the Puppeteer and Voice of Dapple the Horse in TVAM's Dappledown Farm Kids TV Series. A Puppet we also made. Adopting the aspect of the Medieval Mind but utilising modern technology, I found an old photograph, printed it and signed it and then, New Art Enshrined it, as something to revere, to Treasure. I call it 'Dapple Relic'. (I await the Pilgrims)

Exploring Nostalgia and Celebration 2015
Events and Greetings Cards to create Memento's, Relics as Artworks.

Exploring Nature and Enshrinement 2015
Taking a cue from Coins in Bark and seemingly impromptu randomly placed memorial flowers.
Titles: The Treasure Tree, The Dancing Tree, Heart Nose Tree and Crown Tree.

Exploring the Transformational Power of Art and Building Design.

The Ever Changing Faces of the Gladstone Hotel Series 2015. Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Canada.

2015 Exploring Postcard Art - Pareidolia vs Apophenia

Title. Helena my Love. (Right) 2015 Iconic Portraiture style.

Materials used.
Photo of Helena Smee on Cardboard with Jewellery and Acrylic Gems lastly Vacuum Sealed in Poly Bag and hung by string with wooden clothes line clips.

Homeless in the Puppetised City Workshop.
An accompanying family building Puppetisation workshop developed tested and delivered to excellent evaluation.
See Educational

The DOGHORSE COAT Art Exhibition 2015
held over February 2015 at the Floor 1, Exhibition Space, Central Library Nottingham.
Pet Dog Coats are given a Modern yet Medieval and Heraldic twist. With personal commentary

Puppetised Dog Coats Titled Diver Dad, Space Dog and OEillet rouget, longe langue.
See the Exhibition page The DogHorse Coat Art Exhibition

Homeless in the Puppetised City Art Exhibition 2014
A Landmark Exhibition, one man show, in the City of Nottingham held Easter 2014. 12x new large canvas based Puppetised works of Nottingham City Buildings are stared at by a lonely homeless Puppet child in an instillation style exhibition that includes video composite playouts. There are also accompanying and complementing family Building image based Puppetising activity workshops. All very well received and reviewed.
Completed Puppetised works featured in Nottingham Arts Magazine Left Lion in the run up to the Exhibition

Catalogue iPad eBook
Exhibition Page
Facebook Page
Press Release

Marcus initially returns to Contemporary Art in 2010 with these Puppetised works and calls it PuppetTVGraffiti.

Exploring 3D Reliquary Sculpture with Epitath. Reliquario di Pinocchio (2012 right)
A rare puppetised object. A fragment of the true nose of Pinocchio in it's original Reliquary. Read Epitath More

Some Quotes.
"interesting juxtaposition, an eclectic mishmash, a concentration of tropes". "Gesamtkunstwerk". Anon "A local artist, making a mark regionally, nationally and internationally". Peter Knott. ACE.
"I've never worried about being found out. I know I'm not a fraud." Marcus Clarke

Masonic inspired art 2010 - 2015
Marcus has always been interested in History and while at School in West Bridgford became aware of Freemasonry from school friends whose Dads were Freemasons. These boys would talk about joining. In Art and Engineering Drawing classes they’d share knowledge. In one instance a Lewis drawing a circle put a dot in it saying, “this is another way of describing God”. It was intriguing. While working in the West End Theatre, Masonic Hall and Seasonal gatherings were interesting but it was only much later in 2010 when Marcus returned to his artwork that he decided to Study Freemasonry. Being ADHD Marcus is sometimes awkward in social situations that aren't one on one. Learning about history and creating art had always been calming to him. Some of Freemasonry is akin to stage craft. Learning stage directions and lines of dialogue were familiar to him. Marcus learned many of the so called English Blue Lodge rituals, some Side Orders and later studied American and Scott’s Freemasonry too. They inspired some new and different artworks, askew to this knowledge and from a slightly chaotic Artists’ mind rather than his more analytical side. He says, “I enjoyed all the learning and found the whole subject both fascinating and inspiring. What I learned most though is that it’s almost impossible to understand English Art, Culture and History without a knowledge of Freemasonry and its part in it”. Marcus Clarke has never been or has ever been asked to become a Freemason.

Some Press
F- ACT Magazine Canberra Australia 2017 Fusion:5 Inspirational pieces of Artwork from Marcus Clarke
RSM Sheringham Art Exhibition 2017 Fisher-Patterson Gallery GT.Yarmouth
The front Cover of June/July 2011 Nottingham Culture Magazine 'LeftLion' Created by Marcus Clarke. (far right)
Nottingham Post Feb 2015 DogHorse Coat Art Exhibition Feature. (right)
Left Lion feb 2015 DogHorse Coat Art Exhibition

Inside is an interview with Marcus Clarke. Interview
LeftLion Shoot Video

BBC Articles and Radio Interviews. BBC

Childhood Short Stories page

Left Lion Cover 41 created by Marcus Clarke

Surface Gallery
International Postcard Shows

2013 - 2016 The Ascania to Canada

2014 Black Spot. (Art Writing).
2013 The Surface Gallery Bug.

Black Dot Art Writing

Ascania to Canada

Marcus Clarke has also worked in a variety of Backstage Theatre Technician roles since 1974
Here on Casual Stage Duty on The Derby Theatre's Robin Hood 2023

Robin
Hood

4 Puppetised Jacket's Project page

University Degree. Who needs them?
People sometimes say to me, “if you’re an artist why don’t you have a university degree” I say “I’m an artist because I don’t have a university degree”.
See, when I was a Teenager I applied to Nottingham Trent University, NTU then Trent Polytechnic. For their Arts Foundation Course. I’m a Notts local boy. I had always drawn, especially portraiture and I had an extensive portfolio of artwork. Despite my ADHD then labeled Hyperactivity I had done quite well at school until my late teens when a traumatic abduction event and near murder impacted my ability to concentrate and my school attendance. I was constantly stressed. 1976 aged 18yrs I presented myself to Trent Polytechnic now Nottingham Trent University NTU for interview. I was working in Backstage Theatre and thought qualifications might help with a Theatre Career. My artwork spilled out over the table. The interviewer said, ”you can do art but you don’t understand what your doing, you have no GCSE’s. You see, arts an academic subject”.
That year Mansfield College of Art accepted me on a Vocational Graphics course that required no qualifications. Though I got some GCSE’s and A Level Art in the year I was there and learnt a lot of basic art skills, Ceramics, Printing etc. The pull of the Theatre was too great and I returned to my part time job soon going full time.
I understand NTU still require GCSE’s and turn down those with hidden disabilities on the basis that they can’t do Group Work.
Ironically Mansfield College of Art now Vision West Notts College wouldn’t take me today either as even their Art Beginners Course requires 4 GCSE’s.
They’re also now part run by NTU. I don’t know if that’s why. Square Pegs round holes when most kids aren’t even read write learners.
So how would having a degree really have stopped me from being an Artist?
The popular view is that a University education is always a good thing but in the case of visual arts it simply isn’t. Art is about divergent thinking and Universities teach convergent thinking. And to young people who probably have not yet mastered divergent or creative thinking at all. So their Artistic development and career ends with Graduation and their Analytical one begins.
I’ve had a lifelong career in the arts and now have a career as an exhibiting fine artist. So I can say with total conviction that had NTU accepted me back then and had I gone up the BA Arts route the only things that would have been grown would have been my analytical critical thinking, my read write skills and my own self consciousness. I wouldn’t have had the flair, daring and imagination needed for a freelance creative career. Though I would have been able to get a proper job. You know the list for Graduate Artists.
So thank you NTU for my Creative Artistic Career.