Among his honors Richard Claraval won a juror’s award at the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh’s Annual Exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art, and a juror’s award at a group exhibition at Panza Gallery, given by Graham Shearing, art critic for the Pittsburgh Press. His drawings and sculptures have been in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the Eastern U.S., including The Bascom Center for the Visual Arts, in North Carolina, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Mr. Claraval’s work is in collections throughout the east, including Westinghouse Corporation, Dr. Ted Steliotes, Mr. Larry Rich, and the Friends of Art Pittsburgh. Richard Claraval grew up in a small western Pennsylvanian town, and now resides in Pittsburgh.
rclaraval@gmail.com
412 214 3334
GENERAL ARTIST STATEMENT 2023
Similar to the way a Jazz performer uses a familiar song as a starting point for improvisation, I use the Renaissancesque human figure as inspiration for creating Abstract Expressionist gesture. This extends it physically, emotionally and philosophically. Throughout many eras of art various harmonious forms have been placed near the figure to extend its gesture, such as the swirling draperies of Baroque and Renaissance paintings. What I do though, is to not just have complimentary forms exist in the same space as the human figure, but actually have them flowing from, and into it, thus integrating the two into a single more complex form.
As a child I enjoyed the simplistic yet dynamic figures of comic books. Later the genius of Michelangelo cemented my passion for the human form and showed me its great potential. A huge inspiration is Classical music, which I consider perhaps the highest form of art. It has long been a goal to create a work of visual art which has the same passion, and structure and nuance and subtlety as a great work of classical music. I also love motion: the exhilaration of flowing along a winding highway in a car; the vicarious thrill of seeing birds in flight, or the beautiful gestures of great athletes and dancers. Whenever I look at a beautiful nude, whether a model, a photo, or a fabulous painting Michelangelo, I envisioned the shapes of the figure flowing outward from it into space creating new forms.
In college I became a fan of the dynamic gestures of Abstract Expressionism. And, being fascinated with the idea of synthesis, I decided to combine this with the human figure. Both are deeply involved with the kinesthetic sense.
My gestural extension of the realistic human figure also has philosophical implications: It is now well known that human beings are part and parcel with the rest of the universe, and not, as religion claims, somehow separate. And, in another vein, it is also clear that new technologies such as, genetic engineering, human/computer interface, nano technology and others will “extend” human beings in ways we cannot imagine.