It does not matter what led you to see Clive Barker’s artworks here for the first time. It may well be one of his many books, films, comics, video games or photography that led you here. What matters now is that in your hands you hold the key to his worlds.
At every stage of Clive Barker’s artistic life there are characters drawn or painted to help tell the story or bring a character to life. These characters are primal in their birth as Barker picks up and draws from his imagination as these beings are born. If you look carefully you will see that a sketch can become a detailed drawing which then can become a painting. Some of these characters have been on a journey with their creator of over 30 years as you can see from the oil paint on the corner of the drawings as they have been painted.
As you look at these imaginings you will meet characters from the Abarat, some of them will be vividly painted in oils on canvas. They may well be full of colour, painted in an impasto style with layer upon layer of painted and deep scratches as Barker explores the layers of paint as he defines the work before calling it finished and lighting a cigar to call it finished. Other Abarat characters can be found on card and paper created in a multitude of methods, ink, pencil, pastel, oil, marker or even mixed media.
Clive Barker cares about each and every one of these characters, they are his children, they form his life’s work and are his gift to us. When Barker wrote Weaveworld in 1987 he created a Credo ‘That Which Can Be Imagined Need Never Be Lost’, this says everything about the paintings and drawings he creates. If you choose to own one of his works never forget that you have part of Clive Barker’s worlds and part of what makes him the most important ‘Imaginer’ of our times.
Russell Cherrington August 2011
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