Clock c. 1936

Curator: Okay, here we have "Clock", a piece created around 1936 by Lawrence Phillips using oil paint and colored pencils. What are your immediate impressions? Editor: There's a delicate melancholia about it, like a fading memory trying to keep perfect time. The clock feels frozen, almost taxidermied. Is it real, or just an image of a clock? It feels like longing. Curator: It's interesting you pick up on that tension. Clocks are, of course, powerful symbols of time's passage and our awareness of mortality. The fact that it's depicted so meticulously, with the faux marbling effect and intricate detailing, reinforces the cultural importance we place on controlling and measuring time. Note how Roman numerals connect it to antiquity. Editor: Yes, there is definitely the weight of tradition, of expectation. Those columns, while decorative, feel almost like pillars holding up the sky—or maybe just the face of the clock! They lend a formal rigidity that contrasts with the hand-drawn quality. Curator: Precisely. It blends precision with a crafted aesthetic. The colored pencil strokes give it a texture that resists becoming slick or mass-produced. And, of course, it represents the changing technology. Editor: Absolutely. It’s odd seeing that traditional facade contrasted by the modern understanding of representing a manufactured clock through rendering methods that recall realism, but aren't photographic at all. How was an ordinary clock turned into art? Curator: Good question! One can ask themselves how everyday symbols or markers function both individually and collectively. It’s fascinating how one era’s advanced invention can turn into nostalgia a generation later, like with this clock. Editor: Yes. Even seeing it visualized via these mixed media styles… watercolor, paint, pencil… time can never be truly captured or re-lived. I’m going to look at time differently now. Curator: Perhaps this "Clock" shows how the visual language of objects evolves alongside our understanding of them, reminding us that even in still life, objects are vessels of memory and cultural inheritance. Editor: A perfect image. This one has really made me reconsider how even simple representations ripple outwards into different ways of thinking.