Bruce Clarke

Bruce Clarke (born 1959, London) is a contemporary visual artist and photographer born to South African parents and based in France. Working across painting, collage, photography, and large-scale public interventions, Bruce Clarke’s work engages the politics of visibility—examining how histories marked by violence can be represented without being reduced to symbols, stereotypes, or narratives of victimhood.

Memory, Dignity, and the Ethics of Looking

Clarke’s work is driven by long-term research into collective memory, human dignity, and the ethics of representation. Rather than treating memory as a closed archive, he approaches it as a fragile and contested process—layered, revised, and continuously reactivated through images.

This approach is reflected in his material language: paint, collage fragments, photographic elements, and text interrupted by erasure and abrasion, as if the surface itself carried the uncertainties of remembrance. His works do not illustrate history; they construct spaces of attention in which viewers are invited to look with care and responsibility.

Upright Men / Upright Women and the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda

Central to Clarke’s oeuvre is the ongoing project Upright Men, initiated in relation to the commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Conceived as a visual act of remembrance across multiple cities and contexts, the project seeks to reintroduce individuality into collective history through upright, frontal figures that insist on presence and dignity.

In 2024, the project evolved into Upright Women, acknowledging both the specific violence endured by women and their central role in survival, reconstruction, and intergenerational transmission. Through these bodies—neither monumental nor spectacular—Clarke proposes an ethics of stance: standing as an act of resistance.

Bruce Clarke within Contemporary African & Diaspora Art

Although based in Europe, Clarke’s practice is deeply connected to South African inheritances and the broader field of contemporary African and diaspora art. His work engages African and diasporic histories not through identity labels, but through sustained research, collaboration, and commemorative commitment.

Within OOA Gallery’s curatorial framework, Bruce Clarke’s work resonates with artists who address memory, transmission, and historical accountability across African and Afro-diasporic contexts.

Current Exhibition

Currently on view at OOA Gallery: Still Standing Upright Women (14 March–19 April 2026), a solo exhibition extending Clarke’s long-term engagement with visual remembrance through painting, print, collage, and photo-collage. The exhibition foregrounds women’s presence within histories of survival and transmission, insisting on dignity through posture, attention, and refusal of spectacle.

Exhibitions and Collections

Clarke has exhibited internationally across Europe, Africa, and the United States, and his work is held in public and private collections. At once visual and ethical, his images do not claim to conclude trauma; they hold it in suspension—allowing presence to emerge where it has too often been denied.

For a detailed list of exhibitions and institutional presentations, consult the artist’s curriculum vitae.

Explore Bruce Clarke’s works, and for broader context, read our introduction to contemporary African and diaspora art.