New York City-based gilder M. Clark creates metallic artwork by sculpting gold, copper, and silver foil. Her compositions explore the many ways reflectivity, texture, and shape suggests depth and movement, creating visual conversations about emotion.

Clark earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in graphic design from Brigham Young University and worked as an art director for leading brands before becoming a full-time artist. She attributes her discipline as an artist to the rigor of her training as a graphic designer.

She has exhibited widely in the United States with additional shows in Paris, London, and Korea. Her works are owned by collectors around the world and have been featured in international publications, as well as exhibited in the Smithsonian. She has received multiple awards including an Award of Excellence from The Kennedy Center.

Artist Statement:

The reflectivity of my materials allows me to investigate the relationship between artwork and audience. My pieces appear different each time they are seen, based on the positions of both the light source and the viewer. This creates a dynamic, mutable experience.

I gravitate toward gold, copper, and silver foils because of the way they reflect light, and their neutral palette allows me to focus on composition, texture, and light rather than color.

I developed a technique to apply metal foil to 2-dimensional surfaces, originally derived from a printing process. I’ve innovated and refined my methods over many years to create large-scale, textural, wall-mounted pieces.

My artwork is made in numerous stages over the course of several months. With a general composition in mind, I produce something, then react to the first effort by altering the materials or rethinking the arrangement. I enter a state of flow where both intuition and logic help me decipher a compelling combination of elements. As I explore the limits and possibilities of the materials, the medium helps guide the next stroke. The process is iterative, a compositional puzzle.

As a dyslexic, I find that written communication is an inadequate form of expression. Words have a fixed quality that is constraining. Because of this belief, my work aims to illuminate the power of non-representational communication. I’m continuously intrigued by the ways that texture, shape, and movement can be used to communicate variabilities of emotion more effectively than concrete objects and words.

My medium allows the surroundings, including the viewer, to be reflected and incorporated into the piece. This illustrates the power the viewer brings to a piece of art and creates an intimate, unique experience for everyone.