Publisher's Synopsis
This book honours the life and art of Peter Clarke, whose career extends over some six decades, since he left his job as a dockworker in Simon's Town to devote himself to art. The wisdom of his decision is reflected in his remarkable career, which was acknowledged in the awards of the Order of Ikhamanga (silver) in 2005 and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. Listening to distant thunder: The art of Peter Clarke recounts an artist's life in the context of the social history of South Africa from the 1940s. From the 1960s his images reflect the social disruption of the Cape Flats, and the trauma of his community's forced removal from Simon's Town to the bleak apartheid township of Ocean View. The book explores his innovative printmaking, as well as the ambitious paintings he began making during sojourns abroad in in the 1970s. Later works experiment with a more painterly abstract style, layered with collage and text, which interrogate history, apartheid, dispossession and exile. Yet Clarke's images have avoided bitterness, and his work is a perceptive scrutiny and celebration of life in all its aspects. Illustrated with over 200 reproductions and photographs, this book was researched and written by well-known South African art historians Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin, in close collaboration with the artist over almost seven years. -
