Oliver Clegg
The Question is not What You Look at but What You See, 2012
A conceptual artist working at the intersection between two- and three-dimensional disciplines, Oliver Clegg wants to “inspire people to think about the past, to think about the things they’ve left behind.” Painting on found ordinary objects such as drawing boards, chess sets, dismantled school desks, and old diaries, Clegg playfully yet poignantly depicts lost toys, building blocks, and upset strollers. The work is imbued with symbolism and surrealism while engaging with language, narrative, and memory; dreams, forming a liminal space between reality and surreality, are central to the scenes. For instance, in the paintings _I_ and _II_ (2010) he respectively renders a floating pillow (symbolizing the unconscious mind) and a floating chair (symbolizing the conscious mind) on floorboards recovered from a dismantled church.
A conceptual artist working at the intersection between two- and three-dimensional disciplines, Oliver Clegg wants to “inspire people to think about the past, to think about the things they’ve left behind.” Painting on found ordinary objects such as drawing boards, chess sets, dismantled school desks, and old diaries, Clegg playfully yet poignantly depicts lost toys, building blocks, and upset strollers. The work is imbued with symbolism and surrealism while engaging with language, narrative, and memory; dreams, forming a liminal space between reality and surreality, are central to the scenes. For instance, in the paintings _I_ and _II_ (2010) he respectively renders a floating pillow (symbolizing the unconscious mind) and a floating chair (symbolizing the conscious mind) on floorboards recovered from a dismantled church.
