Whilst it appears obvious, from the rather brazen ‘signature’ of Clive Hodgson’s work, that a self is definitely present here, we are given little real flesh to occupy the signature’s clear statement of identity and presence. No proper portrait emerges. Appended as it is in these paintings, ‘merely’ to a blaze of effect, the name resonates in a hollow way, just as ‘empty vessels make the most noise’. Nor is the signature really a signature, as it varies in style and could almost be seen more as a label of ownership of the painting, as object, like the name we write on a folder, or boldly on a parcel destined for a remote place. In fact the painting here seems not to be validated or claimed post-hoc by the name, as when an artist signs a finished work; the painting and the signing are synonymous and synchronous. More precisely, with this kind of ‘signature’, something normally marginal becomes central to the painting and displaces other ‘content’. It is this gesture and not anything ‘gestural’ that speaks to the equally absent subject in Morris’ work. The humour within the work of both artists lies in its relation to apparent stabilities and certainties regarding the self and art. Indeed, what sort of relation does something like ‘body language’ have to speech, to writing, to drawing, to art, when it is a manifestation of a subject whose moment is always fugitive and is unknowable in the present? “What am I thinking?” “What am I doing?” are questions that this self cannot answer, or even ask. Nevertheless these questions lie squarely before us, presented by this hidden idiot-savant that may even be our better half. ('Five Years' gallery, London, 2008)

"I have always been attracted to the rampant vacuity of decorative painting and its contiguity with the world of ideas and sense. The decorative offers a potential for blankness, a counterpoint of unfathomable effects, to set against meaning, narrative and sense." Clive Hodgson

Clive Hodgson was born in Nottingham in 1953. He studied at St. Martin’s School of Art 1971-72 and the Slade School of Fine Art 1972-77. His first exhibition was at Browse and Darby London 1978. Other solo or group exhibitions have been at The Slade Gallery London; Danielle Arnauld, London; The British School at Rome; Gimpel Fils, London; Terrace, London; Five Years, London; Broadbent, London.