About
Clayton Orehek is a New York based sculptor, painter, and writer, whose work is often associated with conceptual art and Dadaism. His formal education is in literature and engineering with a degree from Stony Brook University.
His art education, however, is informal and he is an auto didactic, following the talents of his paternal side of the family. His father, along with ten of his aunts and uncles were all involved in some form of creative work, such as painting, drawing, and textile design. The most prolific was Don Orehek, a professional cartoonist and caricaturist.
Orehek’s interest in light, electricity, energy stems from an early exposure to life and work of Nikola Tesla. Orehek’s grandfather, Tesla’s countryman, used to attend Tesla’s lectures and demonstrations in New York City, passing on the passion for innovation and knowledge to his grandson.
Tesla’s genius and his enormous impact on the world of today is still a great source of fascination and inspiration for Orehek who grew up believing that it was ordinary to express solution by drawing or fabricating a device.
Two other impactful figures that greatly influenced Orehek’s work are Kurt Vonnegut and Marcel Duchamp. Vonnegut’s writing style as well as his use of science and science fiction created a narrative platform to suspend the practical and easily slip into the imagination sustains Orehek.
DADA was a new vernacular for expression and Marcell Duchamp made many of the words of that new language. He declared Art by altering the canonized perceptions of previous creative narratives by forcing his position that Art, if made thoughtfully and comprehensively, can be derived from a concept, and need not rely on craftsmanship, hence, his “readymades.”It was said of Duchamp that he “used art to serve mind.” The same can be said for Vonnegut and Tesla, as well as any other creative, innovative mind, whose quality of thought defines the revolutionary developments in different spheres of life.
“To transmute the ordinary, daily objects into sculpture, to create the unexpected, unprecedented environment, has been my lifelong interest and pursuit.” (Clayton Orehek).
