Francesco Clemente

Every day is a painting day, every day is a wedding day. We wait, and see, and paint, and ask who will be the prey and who will be the predator. We can only hope that the temporal self will be the prey of the eternal self—that would be a true wedding.

—Francesco Clemente

Francesco Clemente has forged a singular career that seeks intercultural resonance, combining the commonplace and the fantastical, contemporary impressions and ancient mythologies. Channeling these eclectic sources through his adept imaginative facilities, he has developed his own aesthetic universe of potent, poetic images and symbols, expressed through his striking figurative art. With its arresting subject and the chromatic intensity of its palette, 9-2-2020, The Brides epitomizes the creative metamorphoses that Clemente brings to his allegorically inflected art. Linked by physical gesture and shared matrimonial dresses and bouquets, the animal brides are differentiated as predator and prey through their organic relationship in nature—a hierarchical distinction echoed in their stances and the positioning of their eyes. Featuring an unexpected mixture of the human and the animalistic, 9-2-2020, The Brides resonates with Clemente’s abiding interest in symbolism, metamorphosis, and the transformation of self. Clemente’s watercolors are on view at Lévy Gorvy New York through October 1.

Francesco Clemente
9-2-2020, The Brides
2020
Pigment on canvas
72 x 60 inches (182.9 x 152.4 cm)
Courtesy of Francesco Clemente Studio
Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein