David Clarke

David Clarke initially trained as a fine Artist, before completing his Masters in silversmithing at the Royal College of Art. He has always enjoyed being a rule breaker, starting with his innovative, delicate, balancing structures for supporting fruit. Ever since his collections of objects, have progressively and systematically, broken most of the established canon of silversmithing. He is at the forefront of his discipline, represented in numerous museum and private collections and has lectured extensively in the UK and Europe.

David Clarke, Future Heritage 2015 Alumni

David Clarke often works with antique silver objects that were once cherished, at a time when silver was a material of high status, but have now fallen from favour. He ‘re-births’ these tableware objects by cutting, splicing and rejoining them, sometimes encrusting them with salt and eroding them with lead, to create new narratives from their previous lives. Traditional forms become punk silver, the saccharine sweet of domestic life, are transformed into challenging, almost functional, art. Whilst David Clarke’s work is meticulously crafted, he relishes his iconoclastic approach to silver, rejecting conventional notions of beauty and preciousness.

Silverware By David Clarke

At Future Heritage

For Future Heritage Clarke showed a series of exaggerated spoons titled ‘Blow’. The bowl section was expanded like a bubble, so changing the capacity of this well used tool. He also made 2 cast pewter platters titled: ‘StilledLife,’ ghostly copies of the dinner service his mother used every Sunday. Oval in form,they referred to portraiture andcommemorated her death.

“It exposed me to a new audience. It is always great to show within a mixed discipline context and to receive Corinne’s enthusiasm through her curatorial role.”- David Clarke

Current work

David Clarke undertook a residency at the Tunbridge Wells Museum with bookbinderTracey Rowledge, which resulted in a new body of work, shown in ‘Shelved.’ 2017-18.

He has just completed a 9 month community project for the Dallas Museum of Art , culminating in a commissioned piece made from donations of silver, from 36 families. 75 pieces were distilled down into a huge centrepiece titled:‘ FamilyMatter.’ In return each donor received a hand made beaker as a mark of their generosity and support.

The V&A recently purchased a pair of ceramic budgies from David Clarke’s ‘Menagerie Collection.’ The slipcase birds by German artist Karl Ens were used as moulds; molten pewter was poured into the internal void to crack or explode the ceramics. He has also produced a collection of altered and painted silver plate domestic objects, entitled ‘Face Lift,’ for a Shanghai Collector.

David Clarke was selected to exhibit in ‘Another Crossing,’ curated by Glenn Adamson.The show revisits the Mayflower Voyage, the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower crossing and its significance to American and world history. Clarke’s response was to produce a haunting object entitled ‘Poor Traits;’ oval in form — with the approximate dimensions of the famous depiction of Pocahontas, now in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington — it suggests a painting, but also a mirror, and perhaps a grave marker.

Silverware By David Clarke

If you would like to make an enquiry about David Clarke and commissions, get in touch here