It is with great pleasure that we are presenting the exhibition Past Presence, with the works of Lucy Clink. The exhibition honors Lucy, a professor of photography at Temple University Rome for many years. 

With this exhibition, we reflect on Lucy as a photographer and as a painter. The works are a personal selection of her vast and powerful output, installed in the three rooms of the Gallery of Art, as they might be hung in her studio: gathered by subject, size, or simply because they work well together. We see her reflecting on the things that are important to her art practice. She visits churches and historical monuments, museums, galleries and great collections; she walks along streets, public squares, parks and flea markets. She is struck by the urban fabric of Rome, the local neighborhoods, the architecture. And she gathers images, objects, fragments of  her vivid imagination. These experiences translate into imagery, and the perception of the chromatic and of geometry as they are translated in her work. We become quickly aware of the unreliability of the images as a recording of reality. The artist moves freely between the elements of the composition, with a total irreverence for pure imitation. She gathers disparate objects, creates improbable spaces, captures an intangible light and an impossible perspective. An impalpable light touches and lingers or illuminates the composition and layered or barely veiled shadows describe the solids and the voids. This is art handled by the expert gaze and hand of an artist of multiple skills and a deep dedication to her art practice.