Dawn Clements (1958–2018) was an American contemporary artist and educator. She was known for her large scale, panoramic drawings of interiors that were created with many different materials in a collage-style.[1] Her primary mediums were sumi ink and ballpoint pen on small to large scale paper panels. In order to complete a drawing she cut and pasted paper, editing and expanding the composition to achieve the desired scale. Her completed drawings reveal her working process through the wrinkles and folds evident in the paper. She described her work as "a kind of visual diary of what [she] see[s], touch[es], and desire[s]. As I move between the mundane empirical spaces of my apartment and studio, and the glamorous fictions of movies, apparently seamless environments are disturbed through ever-shifting points of view."[2]
Clements made large-scale drawings that explored interior spaces.[4] Her drawings were inspired by her own domestic environment and also by rooms viewed in soap operas and melodramatic films. She was especially interested in the spaces that women occupy.[4] In her drawings, Clements often compiled a selection of film interiors observed from different angles. The final arrangement of these interiors played with perception and perspective. The drawing flowed over multiple pieces of paper to create a distorted panorama that reflected time, memory, space, and home. “With the panoramic drawings,” she said, “I’m interested in the way we see as we move through life, instead of when we’re sitting still.”[5]
Clements' drawing Mrs. Jessica Drummond's (My Reputation, 1945) (2010) was featured in the 2010 Whitney Biennial.[1] It's a drawing of the bedroom of the main character in the film My Reputation in ballpoint pen. Unlike most of her interiors, this drawing depicts the actress Barbara Stanwyck playing Jessica Drummond. The drawing is a combination of several scenes and shows different moments and camera angles in the room.[6]
2002: Drawings, Greene Gallery, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
1995: Albany Center Galleries, Albany, New York
Select group exhibitions
2020: Affinities and Outliers: Highlights from the University at Albany Fine Art Collections, University Art Museum, University at Albany, State University of New York[17]
2016: PLACE: Monumental Drawings by Dawn Clements, Cynthia Lin, Gelah Penn, Fran Siegel, New York Artists Equity Association, New York
2016: It was Never Linear… Recent Painting, Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NB
2016: Rage for Art (Once Again), Pierogi, New York, NY
2015: Space, Light, and Disorder, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY
2015: Dialogues: Drawings and Works on Paper, Satellite Contemporary, Las Vegas, NV
2015: Fractured: Works on Paper, Helen Day Art Center
2015: August Flowers, James Barron Art, Kent, CT
2015: Community of Influence, curated by Chuck Webster, Spencer Brownstone, New York, NY
2015: Back and Forth: collaborative works of Dawn Clements and Marc Leuthold, Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME
2014: PIEROGI XX: Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition, Pierogi, Brooklyn, NY
2014: Brown University 250th Anniversary Alumni Exhibition, Part 1, David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI
2014: Criminal’s Cinema, Honey Ramka, Brooklyn, NY. Curated by John O’Connor
2014: Come Like Shadows, curated by David Cohen, Zurcher Studio, New York, NY
2013: Paper, Saatchi Gallery, London, England
2013: Ghost of Architecture: Recent Gifts, Promised Gifts, and Acquisitions, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
2013: Ballpoint Pen Drawing Since 1950, curated by Richard Klein, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2013: Susan Rethorst: Inquiring Mind / Choreographic Mind, Goodhard Hall, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA
2012: Echo of Echo, curated by Shirley Tse and Marichris Ty, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2012: Making Room: The Space Between Two & Three Dimensions, Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA
2012: 11th National Drawing Invitational: New York, Singular Drawings, Curated by Charlotta Kotik, Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
2012: seven @ SEVEN, The Boiler, Brooklyn, NY
2012: Inside Outside / Outside In, Lesley Heller Gallery, New York, NY
2012: Cinema, curated by Rik de Boe, Voorkamer, Lier, Belgium
2011: Susan Rethorst: RETRO-(intro)SPECTIVE, curated by Melinda Ring, Danspace Project, New York, NY
2011: Works on Paper, Acme Gallery, LA, CA
2011: Paper Variables, Dieu Donné, New York, NY
2011: Subjective Objective, Pierogi, Brooklyn, NY
2011: After School Special: The 2011 Alumni Show, University Art Museum, Albany, NY[18]
2010: The Logic of Paper, He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
2010: Stranger than Fiction, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
2010: Art on Paper 2010, Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC
2010: Whitney Biennial 2010, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2009: Same Sweet Dream, curated by Martina Batan, Dieu Donne, New York, NY
2009: Contemporary Large-Scale Drawings from the West Collection, Pollock Gallery, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX
1997: Downtown Troy Window Project, Four Lives to Live, Site 2, Troy, NY
1995: Side Show, curated by Karen Kimmel, New York, NY
1995: Protective Covering, curated by Michael Oatman, Colburn Gallery, Burlington, VT
1995: Gallery Rebolloso, Minneapolis, MN
1995: Body Count, curated by Corinna Ripps, Russell Sage College Gallery, Troy, NY
1995: Gradus ad Parnassum, curated by Michael Neff, Kunsthaus Welker, Heidelberg, Germany
1995: Codex, curated by Corinna Ripps, The University Museum, Albany, NY
1995: Drawing’94, Explorations, Sharadin Art Gallery, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA
1993: The Venice Bienniale: Aperto ’93, Venice, Italy
1993: Anxious Art, Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA
1993: The Return of the Cadavre Exquis, (traveling exhibition), Drawing Center, New York, NY, The Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC, American Center, Paris, France, and other locations
1993: Gallery Rebolloso, Minneapolis, MN
1993: Volume 1, curated by Andrew Boardman, Boulevard Project Space, Albany, NY1992
1993: Selections/ Winter ’92, The Drawing Center, New York, NY
1993: Resuscaitating Still Life, a collaborative installation with students of Berkshire Community
1993: College, Koussevitsky Gallery, Pittsfield, MA
References
^ ab"Dawn Clements". Whitney Museum of American Art. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
