Clown Around

Ken Macklin is an Edmonton-born visual artist. Holding Education and Fine Arts Degrees from the University of Alberta, he has studied extensively in workshops led by leading sculptors such as Sir Anthony Caro and at St. Martin’s School of Art, London, UK. The recipient of numerous provincial, national, and international awards and grants, his work has been exhibited widely, and is held in many private collections. Ken Macklin writes: “To me, making art is a form of narrative that is at once both personal and universal. While I draw much of my inspiration from my own lived experience and the zeitgeist of the modern day, so too do I aim to embody in my work emotions and perspectives that change little across time and space, and are part of shared human experience. What was relevant to the old masters of the past, to Michelangelo, to Goya, and to Rothko, is still relevant, and the essential artistic vocabulary of line, volume, form, and colour is a universal and a constant to me. Nature is another constant and a touch-stone of my work. I am inspired by the dense forests and landscape surrounding my home and studio in northern Alberta near the Alaska highway. Living in a landscape covered by snow for as much as half the year, I look to the tangled clusters of branches, the incredible light that gives such clarity, and to the magnificent colours of the sky and the four seasons. I enjoy mixing materials to make colourful and whimsical pieces that provoke positive emotions in viewers. My work, then, is a study in emotional contrasts, extemporaneous one moment, deliberate the next. It is subtle commentary on personal experience and grounded in the history of art.”

Ken Macklin states that creating Clown Around “was like being a kid again.” It communicates a sense of fun, whimsy, and playfulness through its use of colour and shape. The bright colours evoke blossoming gardens. The shapes are inspired by the sphere, which the artist considers to be “the most universal and perfect form of matter in the Universe.”