Josh Clare | Inner Light

Josh Clare finds illumination within the landscape

By Elizabeth L. Delaney

“I love the way a landscape feels,” says Utah artist Josh Clare. “I love being outside when it’s quiet and it’s just me alone in a landscape, painting. It’s a dream come true.”

Clare lives this dream every day, communing with the natural world as well as with his own devotions to realize his vision of fusing earth’s untamed beauty with the spiritual energy that lies below the surface. “The way a painting feels is what I’m after,” he says. Clare considers his art an act of giving—it’s all about his intent and the feeling that goes into, and subsequently emerges from, his paintings. He considers his artistic talent a gift, and while he always had an inkling that creative pursuits might define his life’s work, the dream remained amorphous for his first few decades of life.

Growing up in rural Utah, Clare didn’t have the benefit of a formal art education, nor did he have access to museums and galleries where he could experience fine art firsthand. Despite all that, he had a strong, innate desire to create, and he spent many hours drawing by himself or studying the captivating visual effects in classic Disney films.

When Clare went off to college, he decided to major in art—a decision based on his love of drawing and the results of several career aptitude tests. Though he couldn’t yet see the outcome, art seemed to be the logical path for him to take. When he arrived in the introductory studio classes designed to weed out less-serious students, Clare realized he had found his calling. “It filled my soul,” he says of the freshman art experience. “I loved it so much. I loved the hours I spent drawing these technical, really precise drawings, and I loved what I was learning, and I loved how it made me feel to create. It taught me how desperately I craved creativity. I needed to do something in the art world.”

After that first semester at Brigham Young University—Idaho, Clare took two years off to do mission work in Japan. Upon his return, he continued his art studies, more committed and focused than ever. He enrolled in graphic design classes, figuring that the applied arts had the broadest career potential. But after completing an internship in the field, Clare realized that he needed to create on his own terms, to maintain control over message along with aesthetics, and to communicate in his own way. That epiphany led him back to fine art and eventually to oil painting, which came as a surprise, given that it was a field in which he had very little experience.

Clare had taken only one oil painting class up to that point, just to fulfill a requirement. As it turned out, the class proved beneficial well beyond his expectations. He enjoyed the painting aspect, but also the trips to Jackson, WY, where he had his first experiences in museums and galleries. In addition to discovering the magic of seeing paintings in person, he also recognized that painting could be a legitimate profession.

So at the age of 22, newly married and feeling an urgency to choose a professional direction, Clare placed all his focus on oil painting. He describes the decision as one in which he received divine direction, an answer to his prayers for clarification. It was an assurance that, with hard work and determination, things would fall into place. It wasn’t long after graduation that Clare saw tangible results of his efforts: He gained gallery representation and soon started selling paintings, thereby cementing his path forward. After several years of painting while also teaching at his alma mater, Clare became a full-time painter in 2011.

Today Clare still lives and works in his native Utah, surrounded by the splendor of the colorful, mountainous Cache Valley. As a child he spent a lot of time outdoors, camping, riding horses, and simply enjoying the environment. It was an easy, natural thing to do, and throughout his life it has become engrained in his identity, as a painter and as a person. “I grew up in this landscape, and I’m in love with it for that reason,” he says. “It’s a part of my childhood and part of who I am.”

Though he travels regularly, Clare’s paintings generally capture scenes close to his home. Pastureland, forested areas, mountains, and water sources are all within the sight lines of his property, and he never has to search long to find a spot of meadow or a winding road that piques his interest. “It’s pretty everywhere, but it’s pretty right here,” says Clare, who often gets only a couple of blocks away from his house before stopping to get out his paints. “I don’t feel the need to go farther. I think there’s real value to digesting the place where you are,” he says.

In fact, Clare believes he gets closer to the essence of his subjects the longer he stays in the places he paints, observing and absorbing the sights, sounds, and atmosphere. This closeness creates an intimacy between artist and subject, allowing for a deeper understanding of the space, the light, its colors and textures, and how they interact. He feels in tune with the landscape, appreciates it better, and can harness both the overt and subtle beauty found there.

Clare paints a wide variety of scenes, from unspoiled vistas to rural spaces that bear the mark of humans. His imagery has included the snowy banks of a creek, mountains at sunset, a tree-lined country road, and massive, dilapidated barns. He is especially drawn to painting clouds, and they’re often the impetus for him to begin a plein-air session. He likes the challenge of capturing their ephemeral nature, of putting their ever-changing story on canvas and capturing their beauty before it disappears.

Clare’s paintings begin on location, where he makes quick, small sketches that allow him to observe his source material in its purest state. He calls this part of his process “note taking” and uses it to stay focused on—connected to—the inherent beauty of his subject. “It’s just me recording what I’m seeing,” he explains. “The smaller and the quicker I paint, the more truthful it is.”

In his studio, Clare works to assimilate these truths into larger, more deliberate paintings. He uses the outdoor sketches as the genesis of each piece, also incorporating photographs and memory into his compositions. It is at this point where the artistry happens, when his focus shifts from recording to interpreting. “Outdoors I’m taking notes, I’m learning. But indoors, I’m creating,” he says.

While Clare paints quickly outside, he takes a decidedly methodical approach in the studio. He finds the slower process challenging at times, as he enjoys the spontaneity involved in fast, direct paint application. More than that, however, he relishes the rich, multifaceted textural surfaces that result from a course of layering, scraping, and physically working the pigment. “I’m trying to get a really complicated, interesting surface where the complexity and beauty rival that of nature itself,” he says.

But technique generally is secondary in his overall art practice. Clare is an intensely pious person, and his art embodies the same divine motivations that govern his daily life. He seeks to put more onto the surface than a collection of visual elements; he wants to return the awe and majesty he encountered while present in the landscape. At his core, he strives to make paintings that harbor and emit an inner light viewers find at once stunning and inspirational—work that is, fundamentally, “filled with the spirit of God.”

“There are paintings that live,” Clare says. “You create this body, this thing, and then God breathes life into it, and it lives. And that happens with painting and sculpture. I think that’s why we create. Paintings that breathe like that truly change lives. They make you want to be a better person. They can inspire you the same way an actual landscape can.” For Clare, a small plot of grass or splash of water can have the same positive, lasting effect as something like the Grand Canyon if painted with sincere feeling and intent.

“I paint because I’m trying to put another thing or two into this world that has that kind of life-changing potential,” says the artist. To that end, he paints in the service of something greater than himself, not solely to fulfill his personal desires. He believes that making art means sharing the pure beauty and light he constantly searches for.

The first 10 years of his career have taught Clare many things, chief among them that concentrating on the living, breathing aspect he hopes to achieve in his paintings produces the most authentic outcomes. Paying attention to what the work needs to be is key to communicating his vision. He remarks, “When you decide what matters most to you in painting and chase that, then the rest of it follows.”

representation
Astoria Fine Art, Jackson, WY; Mockingbird Gallery, Bend, OR; Southam Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT.

This story appeared in the February 2021 issue of Southwest Art magazine.