William Clark

Here's the text for the Found Artists exhibit panel that was developed for William Clark, along with some photographs taken on site of his work.

Figure in Motion

William Clark grew up in rural Newtonville, outside Hammonton, on a sprawling property littered with the cars that formed his father’s junkyard, a rusting jewel set amidst acres of fields.  From an early age, William launched excursions into those fields, riding cars when he could, working in the basement as neophyte welder when rain or darkness fell, later displaying his handiwork on the Atlantic City boardwalk in order to ask the one big question all artists must ask: “What do you think of my work?”  For William, cars were vehicles towards a personal vision, and he cannibalized them to achieve ever more elaborate sculptural forms.  Driven by an unceasing need to do art, he transforms disparate arrays of junk into novel assemblages, producing a series of welded metal figures, all the while chasing that grand but elusive goal of sculptors: movement.  Delving into a deeper past, William excavated brass, copper, and steel parts from old typewriters and cash registers, their subtle sheens lending subdued but suggestive color to a growing flock of fantastical metallic birds, whose joints and junctures are formed from the simple tension of superimposed angles.  His garden now a favorite laboratory for his art, William grows flowers from seed, scrutinizes their foliated shapes, marvels at the jazzy colors, and muses on ways to propel his art forward.

Bird in Motion