Installation in
Polar Weekend

American Museum
of Natural History

February 7 & 8, 2009

Marcia Clark’s paintings in this traveling exhibition reflect her recent travels to the Arctic. In 2006 she visited Norway’s Svalbard Archipelago and in 2007 she was in northwest Greenland as artist in residence at the Upernavik Museum. Her focus in this exhibition is on the forever fluctuating, mutating, and transforming nature of the polar ice.

Ice, Iceberg, Baffin Bay, shown above, was painted last spring in Upernavik. “The large iceberg in the distance was there when I arrived,” said Clark, “and seemed as permanent and solid as a mountain until it suddenly disappeared a couple of weeks later.” Another image that remained vivid from her travels was an ice tower which a French visitor referred to as “Notre Dame.” It sat at the entrance to the Jacobshaven Fiord for over a month until it sailed off and was seen in the distance a few hours later, disappearing behind a spit of land.

“For Clark, a world without terrafirma has led her to seek a new language evoking mutable form and shifting spaces.” —Wendy Gittler

Clark is a widely exhibited artist and the recipient of numerous awards. She has a BFA degree in painting from Yale University and a MFA degree from SUNY New Paltz.

Article in Panorama Magazine,
Albany Institute of History and Art, Fall 2008

Reviews of past exhibitions

Times Union, January 1, 2009
Gallery & Studio, April, 2008
Gallery & Studio, September-October, 2003
New York Times, April 19, 2002
Times Union, September 2002
New York Times, August 11, 1995
Art & Antiques, November 1989
Art in America, 1985