It’s Time for Some Personal Development

It’s been a while Since I’ve posted anything up here. Sorry about that. I’m really not making good on my promise to post something new here every single week.

The only excuse I can offer is busyness.
I’ve been busy. Very busy.
Lots of prep work, lots of new paintings, and lots of shows.
I hung my ninth show of the year the other day. That’s a new personal record for me. Nine shows and over 100 new paintings in one year, and I’ve still got 1 full month to go.


It’s been a good run for me this last little while. Since May of 2009, I’ve pretty much had a constant stream of shows and deadlines ahead of me. This has kept me very busy. Deadlines give me some much needed focus and motivation, and a chance to work hard and really push one idea has been great. But, the constant time crunch and the constant need to have a certain amount of new work ready by a certain date meant that every painting I made had to be a ‘show piece’. The painting had to be successful; it had to be show worthy.

While I feel that I achieved that, I miss trying out completely new things.
With each show piece, I made some subtle tweaks to my process. I make a point of trying at least one new thing in every piece I do. I don’t want my work to ever feel stale. But there is a huge difference between refinements of one idea, and messing around in my studio and just seeing what happens when I play. That’s where new ideas and breakthroughs come from.

I’ve got a good number of showings of the Urban Landscapes under my belt; I’ve got a bit of a stockpile of new work built up, and I’ve got nothing planned for the next 2 months. That means that for the first time in almost 2 years, I can just walk into my studio, mess around, and see what happens. It will be a time of personal development, and I am very much looking forward to it.

Published by

Kyle Clements

Kyle Clements is a Toronto-based artist and nerd. During his thesis at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Kyle began working on his Urban Landscapes series, a body of work that aims to capture the energy and excitement of life in the fast-paced urban environment. After graduating from OCAD in 2006, Kyle spent a year living in Asia to gather source material and experience in a different kind or urban environment. His work is vibrant and colourful. Whether painting the harsh Northern landscape, or capturing the overwhelming buzz of life in the city, his acrylic paintings hover between representation and abstraction.