Following her return from a mega trip to favourite and far flung places with her husband, we chatted with Candy Clarke about her travels and where they have taken her artistically.
Welcome Home Candy! It’s great to see you safely returned and we’re loving having all of your new work in the galleries. Would you mind sharing with us the places you visited? We’re interested to know why you chose the places you did.
Thanks its great to be back in my studio, not so sure about the South Island winter though! I'm happy to share where we have travelled on our Year of Adventure.
We spent the first 8 months cruising around Europe revisiting a few places from earlier travels and finding loads of fabulous new places too. We often stayed for six weeks at a time in one spot, really enabling us to get a good sense of place.
We chose our destinations a bit randomly, depending on the weather or discovering great accommodation, or because of recommendations from others.
We started in Gozo Island, Malta, then Ortigia Island off Sicily. From there to Madrid across to Portugal and looped back to Spain. Next, we flew off to Denmark to meet up with old friends and the BEST hosts before BAM another culture shock…Greece! We revisited beautiful Paxos Island, staying for seven weeks which included a delightful family reunion.
Next, back to Italy to the mainland, all the way from the heel to Lake Como in the far north. It was November and getting cold by then, so we took off to Sri Lanka to warm up for six weeks. Some good inspiration was to be found in this country.
Did you paint/draw while you were away?
While away yes, I did sketch, draw, and doodle. I planned a few paintings or at least I thought I had, but It turns out I’m more of a spontaneous painter and very few of my sketches have developed into new paintings. I found I like fresh ideas and I seem to have painted my response to being back in NZ more than European impressions. One exception of extreme planning was “Looking Back” a piece I thought about a lot and planned when we were up in Northland. Many of the places we stayed had interesting or curious art pieces and I was intrigued by an Ebony carved bird. He became the central character in this painting. There are more curios too, we will have to wait and see if I can bring them to painting glory or not!
We have noticed a warm colour palette coming through in your recent work and the inclusion of landscapes. How have your travel experiences affected your work?
I guess essentially having three summers in a row may have influenced that… or it was all those sun-faded pinks and golds of the European architecture? I think maybe they are my colours anyway.
From Sri Lanka we spent Christmas and several weeks in Brisbane with family there. Finally back to New Zealand. We had another summer in the Far North before slowly driving down the east coast of our beautiful country and back to Nelson. So lucky to appreciate our own unique landscape. Rolling hills, rugged bush, grassy planes, oceans of oceans, mountains of mountains, just so much space. And this is why there are also landscapes turning up in my latest work!
Which place was your favourite?
Too hard to answer, every place had something special for lots of reasons but gotta say, Italy is pretty hard to beat.
Do you think that taking a hiatus from the studio has been beneficial to your development as an artist?
I can’t tell. It was nice to have a break because I’d worked so hard right up to the minute we left. But a year out was a long break and I really missed painting big scale pieces. Roll on summer and some positive vibes. Feels like everyone here has been holding their breath!
What's next for you?
More adventures I reckon, in wintertime… somewhere warm.
Thanks so much for sharing your stories Candy!
