Stephen McClymont (b. 1952) received an MFA in Sculpture from the National Art School in Sydney, Australia. In 1979 he relocated to New York, where he continued his studies at the New York Studio School. During this period he met and interviewed several artists, including Robert Motherwell, Joan Mitchell, Milton Resnick, Philip Pearlstein and George Segal. Although their work occupied very different territory, they shared a profound faith in painting itself—an understanding that has remained central to McClymont's own practice.

In 1987 McClymont moved to Paris, where he continues to live and work, dividing his time between the French capital and the Greek island of Paros. Throughout a career spanning five decades, his work has been guided by the conviction that painting itself is the subject. Whether abstract or figurative, each painting develops through the interplay of colour, gesture, image and surface, seeking a sense of completeness in which nothing more needs to be said.

An award winning teacher, McClymont has taught painting at several international art schools and universities, including: The National Art School Sydney, Australia, Parsons The New School, Paris, The University of Colorado at Boulder, Paris College of Art, Paris France.

Dore Ashton wrote that McClymont "has developed a brush stroke into a kind of rebus that tells of his response to what he calls the rhythms of nature, bridging the frontiers between abstraction and representation.

Artist’s Statement

In an effort to expand any fixed definition of painting, my practice moves freely across styles, categories, and references, resisting a fixed philosophy or hierarchy of subject matter. Meaning emerges through this movement rather than being directly conveyed. I see painting, first and foremost, as being about painting itself: an exploration of perception, the application of pigment to a surface, the creation of pictorial space, and the shifting relationship between surface and illusion. Subject matter and theme come after. They become vehicles through which I investigate the possibilities and limitations of the medium.

I believe painting has always possessed a self-reflective dimension. Whether its subject is religious, historical, political, or personal, the painter is simultaneously engaged with questions of colour, light, form, space, surface, and the illusion—or denial—of depth. These concerns are fundamental to my practice. Painting speaks about its subject, but it also speaks about what painting is and what it can become. Every significant painter tests the boundaries of what has come before. Every major advance in painting is, in effect, a proposition: What if painting could do this?

In my own work, I am continually asking what kind of experience a painting can create through colour, atmosphere, structure, and the material presence of paint. I am interested in the point at which these elements begin to generate something beyond description—something sensed rather than explained.

Emotion is an essential part of this process. Paintings are vessels for emotion, and that emotion passes through the body of the artist and into the physical act of painting. The hand can reveal curiosity, tenderness, aggression, confusion, hesitation, confidence, anger, obsession, patience, and love. These qualities may enter the painting consciously or unconsciously, through gesture, pressure, rhythm, colour, erasure, and the accumulation of paint.

For me, this physical and emotional presence is where the painting begins to speak for itself. The subject may provide the vehicle, but the painting ultimately becomes an encounter between perception, material, and the human experienc

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