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Lot Essay
'Clemente's light-filled meditations in The Book of the Sea have created enigmatic emblems of the Caribbean plentitude; these lyric and symbolic watercolours, made at intervals since 1991, continue the long story of imaginary engagements with the old , the very old, New World. They picture an inner dream sequence of sacred figures, of sleeping or visionary women, of mandala-like knots of female geometries in luminous veils of colour, communicate awe and wonder, with a stinging line of violence and unease, in spite of the gorgeous radiance of colour and light, the infused atmostphere of breezes and currents of water and air that wraps an island in the middle of the tropical sea.' (M. Warner. 'Pavane for her Wildwoman Symmetries', Francesco Clemente The Book of the Sea, exh. cat., London, 2002, p. 7).