Ed Clark Pink Wave 2006
© The Estate of Ed Clark
After studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ed Clark moved to Paris in the early 1950s. The five years he lived there had a strong influence on his artistic practice. As a Black artist, Clark found greater freedom from discrimination in this European city and an environment that was more open to his interests in abstraction. He returned to the United States in 1957, to New York, where he became active in the downtown art scene. He was attracted to the energy and movement conveyed in Abstract Expressionist paintings, and began to experiment with different ways of placing paint on canvas.
Pink Wave represents a recent example of Clark’s technique—first developed during his early years in New York—in which he poured thick acrylic paint onto raw canvas and then moved it quickly, using a dust broom. During this process, his canvases were placed on the floor, and as a result, the paintings often contain debris picked up from his studio and embedded in the paint. Through his innovative use of the broom, Clark added a new tool to the vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism; this method allowed him to use his entire body to move the paint and gave him the ability to create broad, gestural marks. His use of the broom also introduced references to dirt, divisions of social class, and manual labor into his investigations of abstraction.
Identification
Title
Pink Wave
Production Date
2006
Object Number
2015.1
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and PAMM Ambassadors for Black Art
Copyright
© The Estate of Ed Clark
https://www.pamm.org/en/artwork/2015.1
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Physical Qualities
Medium
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions
72 x 84 inches
Visual Description
Pink Wave by artist Ed Clark is an acrylic painting on canvas made in 2006. It measures roughly six feet by seven feet and is hung in landscape orientation, meaning its longest side runs parallel to the floor.
This painting is an example of an abstraction, which is a style of painting that focuses on the gestural movement of shapes and colors rather than depicting scenes or figures.
Pink Wave is comprised of what could be considered four distinct sections of color. The first section which is located in the upper part of the composition is a gradient of three colors: light blue at the top, white in the middle, and brown at the bottom. A large brush stroke created this gradient and appears to be one fluid action in the form of a sideways letter “S”. Up close, bits of brush hair and debris are visibly embedded in the paint. The artist is known for laying canvases on the floor and using large brooms to paint. The debris and size of the stroke heavily imply this is the case with Pink Wave.
As one follows the swoosh of color at the top, we are met with another smaller gradient of color that touches the bottom of the initial grouping of colors. This second, middle section is of a light green and pink with a chunk of white that creates a blob-like, irregular shape at the top. This section runs to the left extreme of the canvas and ends about two-thirds of the way towards the right. It intersects the third and bottommost section of color beneath it, which is a large stroke of pink paint. Within it there are smaller strokes of white which implies that the paint was not fully mixed, or mixed on the canvas itself. The pink section runs from the right extreme of the canvas and stops towards the middle.
At the end of the pink stroke, a strong vein of red paint appears to drip from within it and down towards the bottom of the canvas. This final section thickly covers the entire bottom portion of the painting. Although mostly red, it has subtle changes in tone.
The entire composition seems to float above the exposed canvas which is of a solid cream color.
