A fifth-generation Floridian, Cliffton Chandler is an unconventional artist, who asserts that he doesn’t paint ‘things.’
“I mostly paint ideas, witticisms or wordplays,” shares the 44-year-old sculptor, who uses multi-media to enhance his layered carvings, hoping the imagery will get “lodged in someone’s mind.”
Chandler joins assemblage artist Joan Earnhart, muralist Maslow and collage artist Derek Gores at an exhibition of their work at Gallery 14 in historic downtown Vero Beach entitled Visual Poetry, curated by Gores. The exhibit will be on display through Jan. 28.
Growing up in Melbourne, Chandler had no shortage of inspiration. Awed and fascinated by the graffiti murals his friends and other local muralists were generating, he enjoyed watching the way people interacted with the large-scale artworks.
He recalls thinking that it was a great way for businesses to bond with their customers emotionally. Eventually, Chandler decided to try his hand at creating his own murals.
“I don’t know that it was rational. I just wound up becoming who I am as a consequence of my environment,” he adds.
Chandler remembers having an interest in art as a child in elementary school, impressed by how well the other children drew. Each week the teacher would put the best drawing on the wall.
“I never got up there,” he says wistfully. By junior high, he says that there were some incredible artists.
“Every single one of them eventually quit drawing. Because they were so talented, they expected perfection. That’s a real narrow window of emotional expression. Since I knew that perfection was way beyond me, if I even did really well, I was elated. I had constant, positive emotional reinforcement. Perfection is an artist’s worst enemy.”
After high school, Chandler attended the University of Florida, majoring in liberal arts, but left because he felt there was a better way for him to learn – by doing.
Drawing likenesses was never my strength. That’s why I do ideas rather than depictions. I’m an organically grown artist, more so than a trained one. I’ve been fortunate to have very talented mentors throughout my vocational training.”
When Chandler discovered that he had an interest in learning woodwork, he started working at menial jobs in the carpentry trade. He couldn’t afford his own tools, so he would stay late and experiment using the company’s tools.
“Now, my friends call me the all-purpose friend, because no matter what tool they need, I’ve got one. That took 20 years to build up,” he says with a chuckle.
One night, while sanding boards at a custom cabinetry shop, the master woodworker noticed Chandler’s work. Intrigued, he took him under his wing.
“That relationship brought me to a whole new level. I learned more from him than I have from anybody. He was fascinated because nobody had ever wanted to do what I was trying to do,” says Chandler.
“I went from murals to doing carvings. I skipped the in-between steps. When I went to start carving things, I started carving things that were huge right away.”
Wood is now Chandler’s medium of choice for his sculptures.
“It has the best qualities of strength and lightness. Wood is versatile. It’s alive. When I’m working with wood, I have the opportunity to incorporate all the grain. The grain structures are all built into the drawing and used to the advantage of the drawing.”
An example of his layered drawings, which are created using layers of wooden planes and cutouts, is “Mangroves,” where the grains give the illusion of texture.
He says that the selection of the materials he uses is driven by the techniques he wishes to apply, giving him the freedom to juxtapose images and to convey an idea.
The dimensionality of “Sharing the Load,” a wood cutout with a kaleidoscope of Monarch butterflies carrying a house through the air, has you rooting for the butterflies and their cumbersome burden.
Chandler’s work also includes architectural drawing, interior design and digital media, and he has recently dipped his proverbial paint brush into the non-fungible tokens arena, better known as NFTs.
“It’s exciting to participate in a whole new culture. The ideas can range wildly. I love to take art history and manipulate it. I’ve lived in Florida for the majority of my life, and I’ve never traveled to see European splendor.”
Referring to the domed ceilings of ancient cathedrals, he says, “to me, it’s like something from a book. Because I’ve never experienced one in person, it’s easy for me to come up with a witticism here and there. Part of my technique is naivete,” he explains.
Although he recently took several architecture courses, thinking he might enjoy designing buildings, it didn’t take long to realize that he was pursuing “just another art job. I already have one of those. I’m a sculptor.”
He also discovered that as an architect he would no longer be able to bring his art to life with his own hands, adding: “You can’t lift a hammer or use a screwdriver.”
Despite it not being the right outlet for his creativity, he admits “I really liked the process that they taught in design school. It freed me up to use new techniques and made me aware of industries that I didn’t know existed.”
With more materials now at his disposal, a toolbox full of implements and an appreciation for reproducibility, Chandler can better determine how to make an idea a reality. His ability to think outside of any artistic constraints gives him more freedom to experiment, using the idea to drive the process.
The Gallery14 exhibit has an eclectic selection of Chandler’s work, including reverse-painted acrylics, hand-cut stencils, and layered cutouts with printed images that create 3-dimensionality.
During some experimentation, “his happy place,” Chandler discovered that painting on the reverse side of glass creates a wet look, as in his “Acrylics.” Pointing to “Silver Lining,” a depiction of stormy clouds, he explains that sliver-leafing the edges of layered cutouts causes them to refract light.
“My technique is all over the map,” Chandler happily admits. “I wish I could say what my prevalent technique is, but I don’t know that I have one.”
For more information, visit gallery14verobeach.com.
Photos by Kaila Jones
