BIO
Clague is a New Zealand born, Christchurch Ōtautahi based artist. His practice spans the mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, video, and sound; conjuring varied and seemingly unconnected cultural and artistic references into a scatterbrained yet compulsively poetic matrix of signs and symbols.
In an essay for Art+Australia Online, Abbra Kotlarczyk writes:
Clague’s works are elisions in the true sense of the word: as aporia, an irresolvable internal contradiction that gets to the heart of what it means to both reject and join forces with our turbid desires. Perhaps it’s something like the poet Anne Waldman describes when she takes on the dark spirit of Richard Nixon during a fire puja ceremony: in order to generate more compassion for the world we have to let in the negative energies as well as the positive.
Selected Exhibitions:
2022 Singalongs Volume 1 (solo), Pyramid Club, Wellington, NZ
2021 Formication (duo), The Den, Christchurch, NZ
2021 Clean Walls (solo), satchi&satchi&satchi, Auckland, NZ
2021 Der Wanderer (solo), Hot Lunch, Christchurch, NZ
2020 Die ich rief, die Geister werd ich nun nicht los (residents exhibition), Leipzig International Art Programme, Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, Germany
2020 Drink The Ocean (solo), RM Gallery, Auckland, NZ
2020 TRAUMDENKEN 2000 (duo), Meanwhile Gallery, Wellington, NZ
2020 You Can’t Beat A River Into Submission (trio), Tanner St Studios, Christchurch, NZ
2019 A Hundred Rivers Collapse Upon Me (solo), Sosâge Gallery, Auckland, NZ
2019 RM Summer Residency Presentation, RM Project Space, Auckland, NZ
2018 Abject Failure (curated by Chloe Geoghegan), Hastings City Gallery, NZ
2018 Taste Nature (solo), Ilam SoFA Campus Gallery, Christchurch, NZ
2017 The Tomorrow People (group), The Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, NZ
2017 Post Late Pleasure Garden (solo), DIRT Gallery, Dunedin, NZ/Online
2017 Impact (solo), Corner Gallery, Auckland, NZ
2017 Big Spread (group), NEXT Gallery, Christchurch, NZ
2017 [sic] (duo), Chambers 241, Christchurch, NZ
2016 John Fries Finalist Exhibition, UNSW Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2016 It, Going On (group), LOG Recording, Christchurch, NZ (self organised and curated)
Awards/Residencies:
Resident - Leipzig International Art Residency 2020 - Leipzig, Germany
Resident - RM Summer Residency 2019 - Auckland, NZ
Exhibiting Finalist - John Fries Award 2016 - Sydney, Australia
Exhibiting Finalist - Molly Morpeth Canaday Award 2016, 2017, and 2021 - Whakatane, NZ
Exhibiting Finalist - Parkin Drawing Prize 2016 - Wellington, NZ
Press:
2022 Fleury, M. Singalongs Volume 1, https://vernacular-online.nz/Sing-Alongs
2018 Kotlarczyk, A. I, Us, Them: A dark triad, radiating out from a centre and closing in, http://www.artandaustralia.com/online/discursions/i-us-them-dark-triad-radiating-out-centre-and-closing
2018 Geoghegan, C. It's the end of the world as we know it (produced for Taste Nature Ilam exhibition catalogue), https://www.chloegeoghegan.com/its-the-end-of-the-world/
2017 Geoghegan, C. Murmurings and Millennials: A Review of The Tomorrow People, http://pantograph-punch.com/post/review-tomorrow-people
Education:
BFA Hons (1st Class, majoring in oil painting) University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, Christchurch
BFA (majoring in oil painting), University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, Christchurch