Night Orchids

Brian Clarke’s ‘Night Orchids’ constitute 268 works executed on black paper and uniformly framed. Beginning with calligraphic line drawings and fragmented fleur de lys and Spitfires, they developed through the incorporation of watercolour and collage elements.

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Brian Clarke’s ‘Night Orchids’ constitute 268 works executed on black paper and uniformly framed. Beginning with calligraphic line drawings and fragmented fleur de lys and Spitfires, they developed through the incorporation of watercolour and collage elements.

In his conversation with Robert Storr, published in Brian Clarke: Night Orchids (2016), Clarke explains the series:

'"Night Orchids", like most of my drawings, are imaginings of coloured architectural experience... It’s not always a conscious decision, but architectural space and the sense of experiencing colour through volume in an imagined building or structure never seems far away.'

Exhibited in 2016 in full at Pace Gallery London in Night Orchids, selections of the ‘Night Orchids’ have been exhibited together with the related works in lead on sheet lead and glass mosaic in The Art of Light at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, as well as in Brian Clarke: On Line at Arts University Bournemouth. These works also feature in the THAMES MMXX series of editioned skateboard decks, THAMES/BRIAN Night Orchids, released in May 2021 by artist and designer Blondey McCoy.

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