I frequently use hand-cut stencils to transfer drawing imagery to prepared surfaces. These two stencils were used to develop imagery in my most recent exhibition, Then, There's This... I have often felt that the stencils themselves have their own appeal. So, I am presenting them here in their own right.
David McClyment, Pond 1, hand cut stencils mounted on plexiglass, 61 x 91.4 cm (24 x 36 in), 2025.
David McClyment, Pond 2, hand cut stencils mounted on plexiglass, 61 x 91.4 cm (24 x 36 in), 2025.
Member since: 2021
Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 3
Tell us a story about Red Head: I have been regularly exhibiting my artwork for over 45 years. All kinds of galleries: commercial, public, artist-run. All across Ontario and in Europe. But in joining Red Head a few years ago, it feels like I have come home. Artists working together to nurture a community where challenge and experimentation are the norm.
Knowing that I have a reliable and regular venue in which to show is hugely helpful in advancing my own creative practice. As I start to envisage a series of images, in my mind, I immediately begin to project them into the space at Red head. Being intimate with the energy of the gallery changes what I do and how I might do it. Each show, in effect, becomes immediately “site specific”.
My favourite part of being a Red Head member is that singular moment when the work is finally installed. No one else in the gallery. Just me. I can finally clearly see what I have created. The imagery starts to hum and so do I.
David McClyment's compulsion to draw has never been about making money or attracting fame. Both come and go. But what is important is that getting his hands dirty makes him happy. Nor is he particularly good at doing what someone else—like a dealer, curator or buyer—tells him to do. “Artist-empowered” just feels right. He started his exhibiting career with a Toronto co-op, Workscene, now gone. In becoming a recent member of Red Head Gallery McClyment, he has come full circle from where he started.
McClyment is inspired daily by his long-time reason for living, Sue Bracken and their eminently talented son, Jaimie McClyment.
