Christopher McClure
Christopher McClure, a distinguished British painter born in Glasgow and raised in Dublin, brings a deeply atmospheric and introspective quality to contemporary oil painting. After earning a First Class Honours degree in Painting at Brighton College of Art & Design in the 1980s, McClure has continued to develop a distinct visual language grounded in both tradition and experimentation. Now based in Ménerbes, in the South of France, he works from his studio surrounded by the Provençal landscape — a setting that echoes in the luminosity and mystery of his canvases.
McClure’s technique is rooted in craftsmanship and sensibility. He creates his own oil paints by hand, combining raw pigments with oil, allowing him a tactile intimacy with the medium. His paintings unfold through delicate, deliberate layers of brushwork — thinly applied strokes that gradually build into a rich interplay of opacity and transparency. This dynamic tension between deep colour fields and ethereal washes of light becomes the visual metaphor for an inner world: complex, shifting, and perpetually unresolved.
At the heart of McClure’s practice is a fascination with the elusive. His compositions often emerge from what he calls “unexpected glimpses” — moments caught in a landscape or still life that ignite a silent narrative. These accidental discoveries are then explored through drawing, which forms the structural skeleton of each work. Yet, within this framework, spontaneity plays a central role. The artist embraces unpredictability, allowing the composition to evolve organically. What results is not a depiction of reality, but a poetic meditation on perception, memory, and emotional resonance.
There is a philosophical underpinning to McClure’s work. Each canvas resists closure, offering instead a space of unfolding — a site where meaning remains fluid and the viewer becomes part of the interpretative process. As such, his paintings are not statements but questions, layered not only with pigment, but with thought, emotion, and silence.
Created in the controlled environment of his studio, and often based on preliminary sketches or photographic references, McClure’s works explore the tension between structure and improvisation. This intentional contrast generates a rhythmic dialogue — a “dance of intention and randomness” — that gives his paintings a unique sense of vitality and mystery.
Parcus Gallery is proud to present the work of Christopher McClure, whose refined approach to oil painting and deep sensitivity to the unseen position him as a singular voice in the contemporary art world. His canvases, rich with layered meaning and subtle luminosity, invite viewers into a contemplative space — one where ambiguity is not a flaw but a gift, and where each glance reveals something newly discovered.
- 10/05/2025
