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G2-23 Daffodils
G2-23 Daffodils
2018
Brian Clarke’s stained glass screen Daffodils features yellow narcissus flowers on a green and blue backgorund. Developing from Clarke's series of Daffodils watercolours, the screen transforms the expressive qualities of watercolour into glass, capturing both the delicacy of the blooms and the dynamic, dripping technique that characterises the original watercolours.
Clarke described his attraction to the daffodil in 2023:
"One of the earliest poems I ever read as a child was “I wandered lonely as a cloud” – like everybody – by Wordsworth. And there was in it “a crowd, a host of golden daffodils continuous as stars that shine” – I wanted to deliver what Wordsworth delivered in that poetry, as an artist and, somehow especially, through stained glass. And you know, I’d been brought up in an atmosphere, in Oldham – a former mill town, once "King Cotton” – that was essentially dark and bleak, and “Satanic”, but I felt that there was a real chance that I could bring light into that world. I shouldn’t want to overemphasise the idea that there was a planned strategy to nobly engage the human condition: it wasn’t like that. It was very instinctual."
This folding screen was produced with an innovative technique that eliminates the lead cames traditionally used to support and join stained glass, allowing the glass to interact freely with light and space. Daffodils exists in an edition of 10 unique variants plus 3 artist’s proofs, published by HENI.