Emilie Clark
Emilie Clark
Photo credit: Greg Burnet, gburnet@gmail.com
Emilie Clark for M. Legere
I’m interested in the literal interpretation of the word ecology, earth’s household, and how it relates to what we eat. I wanted my plate designs for M. Legere to reference the starting point of the meal, and reveal all the parts, not just the whole foods themselves, but also the creatures in the environment that might contribute to their production. The dinner plate design contains all the different parts of the meal that might unfold as the guests progress through their meal, depending on the menu.
So when the guests sit down in front of a plated dish and observe the design on their plate, they might work their way backward from the composed meal to the many parts of nature from where it has come. One can find a small reference to the soup, salad and dessert dishes inside the design of the dinner plate. The choice of references in each dish refer directly to the parts of the meal associated with that course. For example, the bones and herbs on the soup bowl refer to how every good bowl of soup starts—with bone broth for the carnivore and botanicals for the vegetarian. The occasional insect suggests one of the necessary parts of our food ecosystem. Perhaps the presence of a duck’s head or a juniper berry might call into question a more complex relationship to what one is eating and provide a rich and playful context for the meal at hand.
Bio
Emilie Clark lives and works in New York. She received her BFA from Cornell University in 1991; and her MFA from Bard College in 2002. Clark is currently an assistant Professor at Ohio Wesleyan’s New York Arts Program.
Clark has consistently exhibited new work over the past sixteen-years. Having extensively discussed her work with journalists, she was most recently written about in “An Artist Who Hunts, Emilie Clark Gets Her Gun, Then Her Dutch Oven,” by Ligaya Mishan, The New York Times, March 14, 2016. Her numerous public and institutional collectors range from throughout the U.S. as well as France and Germany. She has also published folios, books, journals, and catalog essays.
Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York
On her “watercolor meditations”, “It was about being, waiting, listening, all your senses activated” –Emilie Clark, “An Artist Who Hunts, Emilie Clark Gets Her Gun, Then Her Dutch Oven”, by Ligaya Mishan, New York Times, March 2016
Plate Series
Place Setting
Cocktail Plate
