Athlone Clarke

Athlone Clarke was born in Jamaica in 1956 and immigrated to the United States in 1985, where he first worked as a professional writer. The move also gave him a chance to reinvent himself by starting to pursue a lifelong interest in visual art. At the same time, he began exploring the concept of tsukumogami, the Japanese folk belief that old tools, household objects, and familiar keepsakes eventually acquire souls or spirits as a result of their long use and association with their owners. This led to seeing all objects around him as capable of possessing memories, meanings, and energies that can be channeled into making mixed-media artworks from found objects. “Spontaneity and experimentation across the different mediums is where it’s at for me,” he says, “Even while I accept that in some cases, spontaneity may require practice.”