greg clarke art

Greg Clarke

Visual Artist and Festival Director, Greg Clarke has worn many hats over the last 30 years. He’s been a photographer, set & costume designer, , performance artist, cabaret performer, nightclub owner, theatre producer and dance party entrepreneur. After graduating from the South Australian Art School of Art with a BA in Fine Art majoring in photography under Fiona Hall and Michael Snelling, Greg moved to Sydney in the late 1980’s to pursue his career as a visual artist. Working from a warehouse studio in an old tomato sauce factory in Darlinghurst, Greg focused on painting, set design, filmmaking and creating collages and constructions from found objects and images. Throughout the eighties music played a large part in his life with Greg performing in alternative art bands Pluto in Paris in Adelaide and Kiss me Stupid and Beautiful & Gorgeous in Sydney.

After a number of solo and group art exhibitions in Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide Greg moved to New York in 1989 where he developed his ideas and a concept for a new form of contemporary vaudeville. Returning to Sydney, Greg put his concept into practice and created the highly successful Sunset Club at Bondi Beach. This was to be a turning point in his career becoming a highly successful entrepreneur, creative producer and festival director. 

A 30 year career followed from programming the Downstairs Theatre at Belvoir St Theatre (1990 - 1994) to co-creating the Jamie & Vanessa dance parties with Tobin Saunders throughout the nighties, becoming Senior Producer at the Sydney Opera House (2001 - 2007), Head of Events in Sydney’s The Rocks and Darling Harbour (2008 - 2010), Director and CEO of the Adelaide Fringe (2010 - 2015), Creative Director at Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras (2016 - 2019) and Artistic Director of Junction Arts Festival in Launceston (2016 -2021).

Much of the success Greg has had throughout his career in the performing arts can be attributed to his visual arts background. He has a passion for commissioning and creating unique ‘theatrical adventures’ that are always visually based, often large-scale and site specific. For the Adelaide Fringe, he co-created with the Fringe team, a giant illuminated disco cuttlefish built around a ute and the street ballet The Sirens. Working with the amazing designer Ali Jones and brilliant choreographer Roz Hervey, The Sirens featured 4 metre high dresses made up of thousands of LED lights. For Junction Arts Festival in Launceston Greg created Roundabout with choreographer Virginia Ferris, a dance work on roller-skates featuring 99 illuminated transparent plastic costumes he designed and made himself.      

Greg is now focusing full-time on creating his own art and has embarked on his own personal colour trip. He has created colourful abstract oil paintings and sculptures inspired by the mountain on the Mid-North coast of NSW where he now lives. He simplifies the lighthouse, trees and the bush land around the mountain, and even the mountain itself, into overlapping geometric planes of colour. Playing with line, abstract shapes and planes of colours he builds up the work within the space until a simple and unexpected but finely balanced composition is reached.

Most recently Greg has collaborated with his partner Slade Smith in creating a special collection of small oil paintings now available for sale online (see Gallery 1 - into the colour garden). Inspired by the lush sub-tropical rainforest where they live, Greg and Slade have merged their complementary styles to create this joyful and colourful suite of collaborative paintings on board.

From stunning heliconias, red tower gingers and bromeliads to the grass trees, gum trees and palms of the Australian bush, these vibrant and intimate works feature the lyrical geometry of Slade’s drawing style with the textured grooves and abstract composition of Greg’s paintings.