Brian Clarke’s Linear Paintings is a series of paintings in portrait orientation from 2010. The series engages with the theme of the line, centring on calligraphic linear elements rendered in white on black grounds. Some works, including Firenze I and Toscana I-3, refer to regions of Italy that Clarke regarded 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."