Brian Clarke’s ‘Linear Paintings’ is a series of paintings in portrait orientation from 2010. A number of the works like Firenze I and Toscana I-3 refer to regions of Italy which Clarke regards as the birthplace of the line. The architect Zaha Hadid referred to these works as ‘like drawings in space; as if drawing not on a canvas but in a volume.’

On the centrality of line in his work, Clarke said in 2011:

‘I see the world through drawing. I’ve been waiting all my life for my line to express who I really am inside, deep down, honestly; I've arrived at that stage where quite naturally my painting have now become lines, just lines: when I finally found the courage to let my paintings become just line, it was like being let out of Alcatraz. There’s always a danger that you get sophisticated, which I want to avoid because line, emotionally expressive line, is against all that.’