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| Leroy Clarke |
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| Leroy Clarke was born in Gonzales, Belmont, Port of Spain, on Nov. 7, 1938. As a young man he was actively involved in the local theatre and utilized his artistic talents to draw, paint, sing and act. And so it was that this early period of his life culminated in the holding of his first one-man exhibition, titled, "A labour of love," in Trinidad in 1966: participation in the biennial exhibition in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1966 and expo '67 in Montreal, Canada. Self-taught as an artist, he left for the United States in 1966 to further his experience in that field. Fuelled by the philosophy of the Black Power Movement, Clarke sought to provide a validity and integrity to the strong cultural, political and social associations between Trinidad and Tobago and Africa through his powerful images. Clarke has painted professionally since 1969. He was the first artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem from 1969 to 1975, and has had numerous exhibitions throughout North and South America as well as in the Caribbean. Edward S. Spriggs, Executive Director of Hammonds House Galleries and Resource Center in Atlanta, Georgia, made this observation about Clarke's work. "Clarke is a surrealist in the tradition of Cuba's Wilfredo Lam and Chile's Roberto Sebastian Matta. His visual repertoire explores that great boundless terrain where the real and the super-real are interlaced. It is a two-sided terrain that retraces the triangle of the Atlantic Slave Trade." "As Lam's fascination was with African-derived spiritual tradition in Cuba, and Matta's focus was on totems and masks of the New Ireland region of Papua, New Guinea, Clarke makes use of the spiritual and mythological incarnations of his native island of Trinidad. He works to reshape and heal the psyche of his fellow islander whom he views as being trapped in the magnetism of materialism and narrow individual interests at the detriment of cultural liberation and Caribbean development. For him, the predicament of his beloved Trinidad is a microcosm of the predicament of neo-colonials everywhere." Clarke writes of his ow philosophy. "Without a philosophy of its own, a nation/people ha no foundation upon which to pivot. This is critical. Our quest now has to be on of essence; to inhabit ourselves, registering complete faith in our own possibilities, rendering unto ourselves that which is only ours and inherent, and without which, we are idle and rudderless in the wide and open season of the world, ready victims to be sacrificed of the designs of whatever circumstance; ready and willing to be invaded and rearranged by whomsoever, whenever the feel like it. Our task is the profound act of beginning. It is a task that without a doubt ushers forth from every degree, difficulties, which, no matter how they are viewed in our present frame of mind of consciousness, will appear insurmountable. For that which we must perceive as reward beyond the tasks resides in the task itself and can only be attained by atoning the task with complete resolve." An interview with LeRoy Clarke by Tony Hall Some of LeRoy Clarke's best art work 1 Some of LeRoy Clarke's best art work 2 Email Mr. LeRoy Clarke |
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| Fragments of a Spiritual- 1971 |