Robin Clare view all artists|you May Also Like...

Born in Belize to Jamaican parents, Clare has lived in Belize, Jamaica, Canada and the UK. While in Canada she completed her foundation studies in studio arts and also gained a qualification as an architectural draftsman. In 2004 Clare graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Painting from the University of the Arts, London, and has had solo and group shows across the UK and internationally, and has works in private and public collections in Europe, Asia, North America and Jamaica.

Buy original artworks and signed limited edition prints by Robin Clare at Opus Fine Art; the home of Contemporary art.

About the Super Villain series

'The Super Villain project, a series of portraits of political leaders in oil on canvas, is an on-going project that I work on in between my other series. I have always been fascinated with the elastic nature of the political machine and the impervious nature of a finely honed public image. The title Super Villain plays with the idea that one man’s hero can be another man’s villain. As I personally tend to find the super villains in a story more intriguing than the hero I went with the title Super Villain for the project.

To keep the project manageable I have limited the portraits to those leaders who have held office within my own lifetime. Each portrait is painted in oil on canvas and captures an image representing an amalgamation of my own memorised interpretation and a mass media interpretation of a particular figure. This has allowed me to subtly play with the popular perceptions of each personality in my composition. For example: Reagan, the Teflon don with his glinting movie star smile; Thatcher, tough, proud, formidable, hawk like; Gorbachev, driven, single-minded, stone faced. Without creating caricatures I have tried to subtly inject individual characteristics that tell a little more than the official portrait might do.

The ground behind these figures has been painted white, paying homage to the attempted blank slate that the new decision maker takes on or creates and onto which they make their mark. The white background also suggests the haze of disinformation that surrounds many a public figure and the inference of other forces working behind the scenes, like wool being gently pulled over the eyes. The real story is on a strictly need to know basis for us non-members. The series as a whole is a reflection on the levels of transparency and the nature of a finely crafted public image. As the project has progressed many smaller narratives have emerged within it. Links are automatically created within groupings of figures offering up a bit of fun, much like a game of connect the dots with a who’s who narrative'.