Brian Clarke: Night Orchids

A stunning collection of 267 drawings and paintings depicting nocturnal orchids

Most nights between about 7pm and midnight, British artist Brian Clarke (born 1953) draws and paints on paper at his home in West London. The urge that drives these nights is curiosity. The subjects of these works change over time but are made obsessively over periods that usually last about two to three years. Between December 2013 and August 2015 the subject was Night Orchids. The series began on a visit to Thailand and continued in France, but the majority were made at home. They are colored paintings of startling variety. As in his explorations with Fleur de Lys, Spitfires, The Cross and Industrial Architecture, this varied iconography--in this instance, Night Orchids--generates an apparently endless sequence of questions "about the nature of beauty and the void in which it flourishes." This catalog of 267 works is introduced by an exclusive interview between Clarke and renowned American critic Robert Storr.