"Anticline"
2006
oil on canvas
54"x 72"
 "Wandermeer" 54"x 72", oil on canvas
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 "Clitheroe" 43"x 60", oil on canvas
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 "Cumbria" 43"x 60" , oil on panel
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 "Amounderness" 27"x 38", oil on constructed panel
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 "Neatherhill" 30"x 36", oil on panel
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 "Meresclough" 30"x 36", oil on panel
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 "Uintah" 36" x 50", oil on panel
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 "Montrose" 50"x 60", oil on canvas
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Utilizing both the traditional conventions of renaissance perspective and a painterly affirmation of the picture plane, Clayton establishes a counterpoint in his paintings between abstract and illusionistic space. The integration seems wholly natural, yet there is a confrontation between flat and illusionistic space which is intentionally wrenching. The interior spaces depicted in these paintings recall abandoned and deteriorating industrial buildings, seductive in their painterly rendering, yet vaguely threatening both to the viewer and to the glimpses of nature each piece offers through a portal or passageway at it's far end. These doorways offer the viewer a pastoral means of escape, if he or she is willing to accept it. Clayton's work not only represents real architecture, and real shifts in contemporary culture, it depicts spaces symbolic of the conflict between the age of technology and the natural man. Says Clayton about his newest work: This exhibition is titled "With an Eye Turned Inward". Both the real landscape locations that inspired these paintings and the invented architectural motif's hold some mystical, nostalgic or metaphysical attraction for me. Recently, I have been studying my family origins, both factual and legendary. While the landscapes depicted in these paintings are inspired by my experience growing up in the American West, Many of the paintings' titles are based on the Northern districts of England where my family roots are. Locations such as Amounderness and Clitheroe are as mythical and compelling to me as their names are alliterative. Ronald Clayton received his B.F.A. from the University of Utah in 1973 and received a Master of Fine Arts from Cranbook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He is currently Professor of Art at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Giradeau, Missouri.
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