Portrait of Lenka Clayton"
Pencil on Paper
Drawing and Painting III
I was not drawn to Lenka Clayton’s when I first studied her work. However, her display in the Carnegie International exhibition made me change my mind.
She revamped an older concept she did in college called “7000 Stones” where she collected rocks and numbered them 1-7000. People would then take home the rocks from the exhibition, so that they’d have a piece of “art” to take home with them. I admired the concept but I don’t see how rocks with some numbers is art.
Her most recent display, “Fruit and Other Things” made in collaboration with Jon Rubin, was something entirely new and special and my opinion of her work changed drastically. Two calligraphic artists wrote out 10,632 titles of rejected paintings from the Carnegie International exhibit and as each card went up, another would come down and would be given to a gallery member. Now that’s art. We can really see her growth and maturity as an artist and it inspires me to keep improving my work.
