Jeremy Clayton – Anniversary Art Exhibition

• Artist Portfolio Magazine
• Jeremy Clayton – Topsham, UK

My work includes varying themes, materials, and techniques. From growing up in a very rural natural setting on a lake, living and travelling abroad quite extensively, to having small child and a wife that was diagnosed with cancer this year (2015), I have many experiences and ideas informing my work. I explore themes surrounding both my personal experiences and my interpretation of the human experience in current contemporary society.

I am a keen observer of the world around me and am fascinated by human relationships in the context of technology and social media. In a world of 24/7 connectedness, I am intrigued and alarmed at how “social” media have created inner worlds within it’s users and have actually promoted disconnection, isolation, anxiety, selfishness, and narcissism. I am perplexed at how anonymity and lack of accountability can influence behavior. I am interested in how gadgets and social media have actually replaced face to face interaction and how it is affecting people and society both now and going forward into the future.

I am interested in societal infatuation with celebrity and social status and its’ willingness to blindly consume and conform because of persuasive marketing and advertising, even if it proves detrimental to the end user’s health and/or well-being.

I care deeply about social issues such as public sector funding, inequality in all of its forms, the complexity of war, and power struggles between political parties, races, religions, and nations. I am very concerned about the environment and the mess that is being left for future generations to clean up.

When I am not commenting about the world around me, I draw from my experiences with past relationships, memories of places I have lived, and the people I have interacted with. I have been influenced by people from all kinds of cultural, personal, social, and socio-economical backgrounds, and they continue to inform my work.

Within my work, I enjoy the use of line, bold and bright colors, and particularly enjoy the processes involved in drawing. I have been influenced by street art and try to draw in a “loose” manner, making decisions intuitively as artworks progress. I am a very reflective, thoughtful, and analytical person by nature, and try to portray this in my artworks.