Coming of Age
Veronica Clements embodies the nostalgic independent spirit and perseverance of your typical coming-of-age narrative. However, do not confuse the artist’s eternally youthful paintings for any sort of insecure search for purpose or self-acceptance, as Clements’ work has already reached and far-surpassed the finding of a truthful and original voice. In fact, the Chicago-based oil-painter’s meticulously arranged still lives and symbolically loaded compositions above all capture the artist’s complete control and clarity in expression and in self-identity. The bold, neon, and blaringly honest portraits of a recent youth are informed by knowledge and research in tradition, specifically in the age old-tradition of vanitas, though always twisted and reconfigured to fit a stronger, modernized, and more personal message. One more thing is of course for certain, Veronica Clements’ signature vibrancy in visuals and voice has no chance of fading from view.
Part One: Who is Veronica Clements?
Question One: Who are you?
I’m Lisa Frank stickers collaged on a CD player. I’m acrylic paint covered tee shirts. I’m dirty tobacco pieces and saturated color. I’m manic episodes, hot pink oil paint, and rhinestone filled handmade ceramics. I’m the Kill Bill theme song music when she sees red. I’m the Chicago skyline. I’m the fun art teacher earrings. I’m the light bokeh made by cellophane over the lens of a camera. I’m Buttercup and Baby Spice and Brittany Murphey in Uptown Girls. I’m the girl that never wants to grow up so she paints everything she loves in order to make it last forever.
Question Two: Who are you as an artist?
I am a magical realism oil painter that uses iconography as both a critique and celebration of modern culture. My work deals with the theme of vanitas, which is a 17th century Dutch genre of painting that uses symbols of transience and impending death to warn against earthly vanity and pleasure. I see my paintings as curiosity cabinets of pop culture and girlhood, and I focus on brevity of life as a symbol of childhood. I don’t want to warn anyone against earthly pleasures in exchange for piety, I see it more as a true reflection of what it means to be a female artist. Displaying my female identity through investigative collections, I reveal and critique the notions and expectations that gender biases have perpetualized throughout history. I see my work as an expression of a justified autonomy, it’s an illustration of coming of age with the notion of agency.
Question Three: In terms of your artistic journey, why are you here and where are you going?
In terms of my artistic journey, I have to believe I am exactly where I need to be right now. I am working on my body of work and building my artist community. In my future I see myself working as an independent artist who displays her work with other badass womenx.
Question Four: What has the process of making art taught you or given you?
Making art has taught me that I am strongest when I am most vulnerable. It’s taught me that forgiveness is essential and each step may seem small, but every step towards your dream is one step closer. The process of making art has and always will give me peace of mind.
Question Five: What do you absolutely need your audience to know about you or your work?
I need my audience to know that each object in my painting means something and is a symbol of transience as well as something or someone that is important to me. My paintings are an iSpy of iconography. I also want my audience to know that each painting is composed and photographed by me for reference and all objects in the paintings are owned or made by me.
Question Six: What keeps you going?
Last summer I went to the Musèe D’Orsay and I saw a Tracey Emin exhibit there and one of the drawings was called, J’ètais debout et je pleurais (I stood and cried), and that is exactly what I was doing. Seeing works by LIVING women artists in the biggest museums in the world gives me hope. And every successful artist I have ever asked for advice has said just to keep going and don’t stop. The day you stop is the day you’re done. So I keep going everyday believing some girl might see my work in a museum one day and cry. Someone once told me “making art is like trying to make waves in the middle of the ocean. You want everyone on shore to see the waves, but it takes years of exhausting yourself making them before they reach the shore.” So I keep going and try to have faith in my ability to make waves.
Part Two: Curious Compositions
What is your artistic practice?
My process starts in my curiosity cabinet. I pick objects that relate to brevity of life and transience and girlhood and memories. I then create a composition on a table for a photograph, usually using gels on lights to get my desired color palette. I then take a series of photographs, get everyone I love’s opinion, and end up going with the image I wanted to go with all along. I then project my photograph onto my canvas and trace it with an oil marker. I use my iPad and put my reference photo in procreate to drop each color I need for each object, and then mix them with oil paints. I work back to front, right to left because I’m a lefty. I paint while having tv shows playing on my laptop. I like competition cooking shows and interior design shows.
2020
oil on canvas
24 x 36 in.
In this painting I modernize 17th century vanitas iconography. Glass objects meant to show artist ability to reflect light are toppled over and have turned into sparkly tobacco pieces. A mirror as a symbol of vanity is a ceramic mirror that I made. Gold coins were used to symbolize attempts to communicate with future generations, in my painting these are CDs, the CD player, and my first cell phone. Jewelry and a trophy symbolize earthly pleasures. The rose has been cut at the stem, its beauty will soon fade. At the same time, these are also symbols of my childhood and adolescence. There’s brevity in that as well. But the beauty of paint is you can keep objects alive forever in their most beautiful state. How you remember them.
2019
oil on canvas
36 x 24 in.
This painting is a modernized version of Renè Magritte’s surrealist painting, On the Threshold of Liberty, which hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago. His headless torso of a female nude painting has become Kim Kardashian, his forest became a highway, his apartment building became a yahoo webpage. I made this painting over the course of my first year out of college, it was a really surreal time.
2020
oil on canvas
30 x 48 in.
This painting is a still from a short film I made that brought the vanitas theme to life through a manic night with a female artist. I was inspired by the movie, Paris, Texas, when thinking about color palette. This painting is about light and movement and the pulsating feeling you get while working late on something you love. This painting is about being alone and not being lonely.
2020
oil on canvas
16 x 20 in.
This painting was titled after the poem with the same title by Thomas Moore.
The last verse of the painting reads,
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love’s shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie wither’d.
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
2020
oil on canvas
16 x 20 in.
This painting is about things lost in translation.
| Where/ How can Vacant Museum viewers see more of your work and where can they purchase it? |
| My work is currently on display in Woman Made’s online exhibition, LOSS. You can see more of my paintings, drawings, 3D, and digital work on my website, veronicaclements.com where all paintings are available for purchase. |