Secret Art Histories: Rebecca Clark

Rebecca Clark feels that there are secret stories hidden beneath the surface of old master portraits. Inspired by this, Clark borrows, juxtaposes and integrates parts of paintings to create a new fiction of her own invention.

“I gather the elements used to create the multi-layered and surrealistic compositions by photographing original paintings hanging in museums,” says Clark. “I approach each painting like a photographer, isolating and selecting parts from the larger whole,” she says. “I transform, manipulate, and interweave photographs of multiple paintings to construct a historic painting that was never painted.”

Rebecca Clark is a Professor of Art at the Community College of Rhode Island. She received her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and a BA in Art History and East Asian Studies from Oberlin College. She has had solo exhibitions at the Pearl St Gallery in Hartford, Connecticut and the Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson NY. She resides in Connecticut.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.