Across five decades, Stephen McClymont’s work has developed through a sustained engagement with painting as a site of enquiry, transformation, and illumination. Encompassing abstract landscapes, portraits, floral compositions, sculpture, photography, and experimental writing, his practice reflects an enduring commitment to the expressive and communicative possibilities of art.

Central to Stephen McClymont’s practice is the principal that painting is a language. Like any language, it possesses a structure and grammar shaped by cultural origins, in which words, sentences, and punctuation communicate meaning and narrative. For McClymont, the “language of paint” is formed through brushwork, varied paint application, scratched, stained, or erased surfaces, colour harmonies and dissonances, and textures ranging from delicate nuance to heavy impasto. Applying this language across a diverse range of themes and subjects these elements interact to create a transcendent pictorial narrative.

In the early 1980s, the artist began developing this visual language encouraged through exchanges with prominent Abstract Expressionist painters, most notably Robert Motherwell, his mentor in New York and Joan Mitchell, with whom he maintained a close friendship over several years.

This language of paint belongs not to a single culture, but to all cultures; it is inherently multicultural. It can be read by viewers of all ages and backgrounds. McClymont’s interest in this visual language lies in its transcendental qualities and its capacity to open a universal, spiritual, and joyful dialogue between viewer and artwork.

Stephen McClymont (born 1952) first studied art at the National Art School in Sydney, Australia, where he was awarded a Master’s degree in Sculpture in 1974. In 1979, he relocated to New York City to continue his studies at the New York Studio School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture. During this period, he met the art historian Dore Ashton, with whom he developed a close friendship. Ashton subsequently introduced him to Robert Motherwell, who later became his mentor in New York.

In 1980, McClymont interviewed several key figures in the New York art world — including Robert Motherwell, Milton Resnick, Joan Mitchell, George Segal, Philip Pearlstein, and Alex Katz — for a manuscript exploring the theme of imagination in art. In the 2000s, he revisited this project, interviewing artists such as Chuck Close, Albert Oehlen, John Baldessari, and others, with the intention of compiling a study of artistic motivations spanning the 1980s to the 2000s.

The recipient of several awards for teaching, Stephen McClymont has taught painting for more than thirty-five years at a number of international art schools and universities, including the National Art School in Sydney, the University of Colorado Boulder, Parsons Paris, and the Paris College of Art.

In 2024, the artist wrote The Blue Door, a substantial autobiographical essay exploring the possibilities of writing about art, presented alongside a selection of lectures written and delivered by the author. Combining personal narrative with critical reflection, the book recounts encounters with prominent contemporary artists while attending to the often-overlooked realities of artistic life: the solitude of studio work, the contingencies of reception, and the pressures and possibilities of the contemporary art world. Moving between memoir, criticism, and cultural observation, the text approaches writing about art through practice, reception, and the structures of the art industry, while remaining attentive to unusual forms and complex emotional and intellectual responses. Throughout, language operates in close parallel with the paintings themselves, seeking forms capable of conveying the intensity and instability of visual experience.

Stephen McClymont lives in Paris, dividing his time between the French capital and the Greek island of Paros.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

SELECTED Group Exhibitions

Awards

Teaching

2005 Artist in Residence. Vermont Studio Center. Vermont USA

2000 Teaching Fellowship. Parsons School of Design. Paris

1986 Artist Studio Award Cite Internationale des Arts. Paris France

1980 Sony Corporation Donation Grant. Sony Corporation. Sony New York. New York

1979 Traveling Scholarship. New York Studio School. New York

1974 Scholarship Study. National Art School Sydney. Australia

1973 Audio Research Scholarship. ‘Revox’ Corporation. ‘Revox’ Sydney, Australia

2010 - present  Member College Art Accociation. New York.

1991 - present Senior Teacher, Parsons School of Design, France

2010 - present Private teaching painting and print making instruction, France

2001 - 2003 Visiting Scholar, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

2000 - 2001 Master Printer of Lithography, Ville de Paris, France

1976 - 1978 Painting teacher National Art School, Sydney, Australia

Bibliography

2011 ‘Stephen McClymont’ Dore Ashton catalogue essay

2008 ‘Art Brightens Barbara Davis Center Walls’ by Michelle Rush ‘Denver Post’.

2008 ‘Dynamic Distraction’ by Neela Eyunni ‘ The Aurora Sentinel’

2006 ‘Interactions – The Contrast of Realities’ by Peter Blake. Catalogue essay

2006 ‘Art Business News’ by Laura Meyers Chicago

2004 Stephen McClymont by Daniel Beckel. Essay. Galerie Beckel‐Odile‐Boicos. Paris, France

2002 ‘Reading Stephen McClymont’ by Deborah J. Haynes. Catalogue essay, Lydon Fine Art, Chicago.

2002 ‘Stephen McClymont ‐ New Paintings’ by Heather Hollenbeck. Press release, Lydon Fine Art Chicago, USA

2002 ‘Absence makes art grow stronger‐ Australian seascapes painted in Paris’by Sandra McLean. The Queensland Courier Mail. July 2002.

2001 Stephen McClymont – by David Malouf. Catalogue essay. Philip Bacon Galleries. Brisbane, Australia

2001 Stephen McClymont‐ Photographs. Stephen McClymont catalogue essay. Paris, France

2001 Stepheh McClymont – Paintings. By Fredderic Pousin. Paris, France

2000 L’Ecluse’ a poem dedicated to the paintings of Stephen McClymont by Gregoire Lavollay‐Porter illustrated by Stephen McClymont. Paris, France

2000 Stephen McClymont by U.B.Klein. Berliner Morgenpost, editorial review, Berlin, Germany

2000 In Australien an der FriedrichstraBe Pa. Berliner Kurier, editorial review, Berlin, Germany

2000 ‘The Puzzle’ by Stephen McClymont catalogue containing one painting in a puzzle, Paris, France

1999 Stephen McClymont at the Embassy. Catalogue essay by Matthew Gledhill at the time of the exhibition presented at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC, USA

1999 Stephen McClymont ‘BON APPETIT’ magazine, editorial on recent works, Chicago, USA

1999 Stephen McClymont ‘Chicago Reader’ magazine. Chicago, USA

1999 ‘Stone in the Water’ by Eleana Murry. Catalogue essay. Lydon Fine Art, Chicago, USA

1999 Fragments‐Inspired by the Sea’ exhibition review Chicago Gallery Guide. Lydon Fine Art, Chicago, USA

1998 ‘Mastering Silence‐ Reflections on a Painting by Stephen McClymont,’ by Vivian Van Blerk. Catalogue essay, Lydon Fine Art, Chicago, USA

1998 'Stephen McClymont’ by Chris Boicos. Galerie Toft. Paris, France

1998 'Visions Under the Sea’ by Justin Sunward ‘Issue’ magazine. Chicago, US

1997 'The Paintings of Stephen McClymont' by Vivian van Blerk. Catalogue essay. Gallery Toft. Paris, France

1997 'Le Sculpteur sur Toile’ ‘by Martine Matine. ‘Antiepode’ magazine. Paris, France

1996 'Chasing Good Painting’ by John McPadden. ‘Newport This Week’ . Newport. R.I., USA

1996 'Stephen McClymont’ editorial for the ‘Foundation Colas’ (Collection catalogue). Paris, France

1996 ‘Stephen McClymont’ by Ann Cremin ‘Arti’ review magazine on the international art scene, Athens/Paris