Dayton Clark’s work inspires curiosity, questioning, and amusement. He doesn’t want you to know exactly what you’re looking at, but at the same time doesn’t try to hide it. The materials are familiar, they’re just not acting like or doing what you expect them to. And the effect is something you have to see for yourself.
Dayton has hung some of his recent work exploring the intersections of painting, sculpture, and architecture at Resonator through the month of March. He sat down with Resonator contributor Taylin Han to talk a little bit about this work and his background. Here’s what he had to say…
Q: Where are you from? What’s your background?
I finished my undergrad in 2015 at the University of Oklahoma School of Visual Art. I got my Master’s in Architecture at the University of Washington. When the pandemic hit, I was presented with the opportunity teach at the College of Architecture at OU, so I currently teach studio classes and architectural theory and criticism there.
Q: What place does art hold in your life?
I would like art to be a 60 percent of my time thing and teaching a 40 percent thing. Ideally, I’d like to do art full time.
Q: What or who inspires or influences your works?
My work has lot of architectural influence, especially in materiality. I originally started as a painter and consider myself one. I became interested in the visual illusion of movement and fluidity of fabrics in works I saw in art history. I thought of the canvas as fabric I could manipulate. I then added the concrete and casting as the architectural counterpart. In terms of artists, I have been inspired by environmental artists Christo and Jeanne Claude, sculptor Anish Kapoor, and modern Italian artists Piero Manzoni and Alberto Burri. I’m also interested in contemporary works by Gedi Sibony, Marlies Hoevers, and Charlotte Thrane.
Q: What are you exploring in your works?
I’m more focused on the aesthetics and visual aspect although I do have thoughts and ideas behind the work that I could talk about if I needed to. Early on, I was thinking about Folds as a property of fabric. If I had to give this exhibition a title, I’d probably call it “Folds”. Overall, I’m interested in the contrast between hard materials like concrete and the fluid movement of fabric.
Q: What are you trying to communicate or achieve in your work?
I try to be a little mischievous. I want my work to be kind of tricky, like it promises one thing but its visual truth is another thing. From far away it looks like fabric draping but once you get up close you realize its concrete and manipulated canvas. So, I’m trying to curate an experience. I’m really interested in “Trompe l’oeil”, or “tricking the eye”. I think of it as breaking the two-dimensional plane by implying depth in a two-dimensional work when there is none. On one, I painted a canvas to look like concrete. In another, I stretched the canvas so it appeared folded and fluid, like fabric. My work is very intentional in the way I want it to be perceived.
Q: What is your process like?
I usually start by asking myself “how can I make people question this surface?” I also started just doodling labyrinths as a sort of meditation which is how a lot of the labyrinth forms in my work came together. In casting and mould-making, I like to think about the relationship between the material and cast, positive and negative forms, and how it can affect the surfaces.
Q: Do you have a work you particularly enjoyed creating?
The most exciting ones are the ones I created impulsively, the ones that I didn’t have planned from the start. The painted concrete one was the most fun. It was impulsive. I was working on something else that night and saw it in the corner and thought I could do something interesting with it. This one with the concrete block pressed into it is really exciting too.
Q: Is there anything you try to convey about yourself or your thoughts in your work?
I don’t really want to talk about myself. I don’t want people to know who did this stuff I just want people to come enjoy it. Again, I more focus on the visual experience.
