Roger Clayton grew up in Memphis. After college he moved to New York City to continue painting and studying art. After eight years he moved back to Tennessee, this time to Nashville. He has also made half dozen trips to Japan. These simple facts are what affects and inspires his work. He has a unique eye for simplicity, color, content and form.
“I like the brushwork of Sung artists in ancient China, using so few lines that you can count them. It was a line full of expression and spontaneity, invented to capture a spiritual essence. I also like the suibokuga paintings made by Zen monks in Japan. Though influenced by the Sung masters, their paintings were often imperfect, primitive, even ugly. I like that when you reduce most of the narrative details, you literally see into or through the nature of the image and hopefully, you again arrive back at its essence. These are qualities that I try to put in my paintings.”
