Pepper Tent

Francesco Clemente is often described as a nomadic artist. His canvases are populated by a range of powerful imagery drawn from his travels and interactions with artistic, intellectual and spiritual traditions from across the world, especially India.Clemente’s Indian connection dates back to the 1970s when his search for a “different version of contemporaneity ” from that of the West first drew him to the country, specifically to Chennai and its Theosophical society. Since then, he has returned frequently, delving into Indian mystical thought and collaborating with a range of local artists, from miniaturists to billboard painters.Clemente came of age amidst the political strife of 1960s Italy. He was heavily influenced by artists of the Arte Povera movement. One of the key figures now associated with the ‘return to figuration’ in painting, his canvases are populated with intimate narrative fragments and are charged with erotic and mythic energy. Pepper Tent (2014) is a part of the artist’s ongoing experiments with the form and structure of a tent. It is a tent covered in paintings made by Clemente in his studio in Brooklyn that was assembled in Rajasthan by Indian tent-makers. One finds here a chorus of imagery ranging from stars to pepper corns, from the high seas to the energy field of the human body, the sailing ship and the figure of a retreating navigator who drops his anchor and rests. In creating an artwork that can envelope the viewer, at once offering shelter and refuge, the artist makes plain what connects art to life. The form of the tent itself stands as a symbol for Clemente’s artistic journey, defined by his itinerant search for inspiration and the self.