Hikalu Clarke

Hikalu Clarke is a contemporary artist who works with a range of approaches, including installation, sound, painting, computer-generated imagery, and textiles. Many of their works explore the material and spatial languages of power and control that are deployed in contemporary society.

Taking urban, capitalist environments as his subject, Clarke’s works respond to the diminishing agency of individual citizens within spaces such as luxury shopping complexes, pop-up parks created by urban redevelopment, and public space in post-9/11 cities. Many of his works invoke the hostile or paranoid nature of these engineered places, incorporating their visual languages. Clarke creates claustrophobic sculptures from scaffolding, mimics alienating architectural renderings, and repurposes industrial and technical textiles such as kevlar, flame-retardant fabrics, and materials from prison mattresses.

Clarke was born in Chigasaki, Japan, and grew up in Palmerston North. He has a BFA and MA from Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design, and has exhibited around Aotearoa since 2016. His work was selected for inclusion in two significant exhibitions in 2017, both of which sought to identify next-generation Aotearoa artists: New Perspectives at Artspace Aotearoa and The Tomorrow People at Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi.

In 2018, Clarke was the recipient of the competitive Aotearoa artist residency at Gasworks in London, supported by the Jan Warburton Trust and Richwhite family. The following year he undertook a residency at Youkobo Artspace in Japan, supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

Hikalu Clarke — website

Hard Limits: on Hikalu Clarke’s Dredge — The Art Paper

Shock of the new - Entertainment News — NZ Herald

2022 — Dredge, Sumer Gallery, Tauranga

2019 — We're Not Too Big to Care, Gus Fisher Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau

2019 — Crowd Source, Aotearoa Art Fair, Tāmaki Makaurau, with Ranier Weston, commissioned by Britomart

2018 — a tight grasp, a quiet voice, Aotearoa Art Fair, designed and produced with Wilson Ong, commissioned by Lexus New Zealand, Tāmaki Makaurau

2018 — Accurate Community Projections, Te Tuhi Reeves Road Billboards, Tāmaki Makaurau

2017 — The Tomorrow People, Adam Art Gallery, Pōneke

2016 — New Perspectives, Artspace Aotearoa, Tāmaki Makaurau

2019 — Artist in residence, Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo, supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation, supported by the Jan Warburton Trust and Richwhite family

2018 — Artist in residence, Gasworks, London