About Clifton Wright
In Clifton Wright’s oil and soft pastel drawings bodies and buildings collide. In this collision, limbs are severed, re-sized, flattened and recomposed. Wright often starts with the face, flagrantly ignoring its anatomy. Eyes and mouths as big as arms, the figure becomes architectural, tangled, and morphing into abstract shapes that interlock and often teeter on the brink of collapse. Everything is in a state of being remade.
‘The face is the most important part of the body, if you get the face right the rest will pretty much follow. It is the shapes in the face and the colours in the face that tell me what the drawing is going to be. My work is more about that abstract stuff than who the person is - a face is the starting point, but the point is the picture. I use the structure of how things slot in to the face, and continue it, like a jigsaw puzzle, across the rest of the picture.’ (Clifton Wright)
Biography
Fifteen artworks by Clifton Wright were included in ‘Lunar Lullabies – a Galactic Journey Through 200 Years of Space Exploration’ at Firstsite Colchester in 2024. Wright's first major solo exhibition 'Hieroglyphics of the Face' at Block 336 in 2022 followed the success of his display at Collect 2022 Somerset House where his drawings and ceramics were acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 2019 Wright's drawings were acquired by the Arts Council Collection leading to National Touring Exhibitions. Wright featured in the Drawing Room exhibition ‘Close: Drawn Portraits’ 2018 and Drawing Biennial 2021, alongside an impressive roster of artists both historical and contemporary.
Solo Exhibitions
2026 - Time Spaghetti - Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
2022 - Hieroglyphics of the Face – Block 336, London
Selected Group exhibitions
2024 - Lunar Lullabies – Firstsite Colchester
2022 - Collect 2022 – Somerset House
2021 - Drawing Biennial 2021 – Drawing Room, London
2018/2019 - Close: Drawn Portraits - Drawing Room, London
2018
Peckham Craft Weekend, Copeland Gallery
Guilt Free – FranklinTill, Brompton Design District for London Design Festival
2017 - Fashioning Space - Victoria and Albert Museum
2012 - SV12 Members Show, Studio Voltaire
2011 - Verovisation, MAD Musee Belgium
2010 - No Soul For Sale, Tate Modern
2009 - See the Revolutionary Art Exhibit, Whitechapel Gallery
2007 - Different Spaces, Studio Voltaire
Collections
2022 - Victoria & Albert Museum
2019-20 - Arts Council Collection
Intoart
Clifton Wright became a member of the London based collective Intoart in 2005.