Clement McAleer was born in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. After a foundation course at Ulster College of Art & Design, Belfast (1971–1972), he studied Fine Art at Canterbury College of Art (1972–1975) and the Royal College of Art, London (1975–1978). Following early recognition, McAleer left his native Ireland for Liverpool, specifically a studio in the Bluecoat Arts Centre, where he settled and worked for the next 25 years. In 2003 he then moved to Belfast where he joined Queen Street Studios (Belfast’s oldest established artists’ studio group).
Travels have consistently inspired the artist’s production throughout his career, a rather logical occurrence considering landscape has thematically dominated his corpus. However, landscape here is not to be understood as the particularities of ‘place’, but rather the restless, shifting aspects of nature where cloud or water, land or sea transforms themselves atmospherically, one into another. The Irish Coast is an endless source of nostalgic creation. Travels in Europe and America have also inspired a number of works, particularly the series of railway paintings in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, where a stronger emphasis on structure again entered his work. Using a grid allowed for a greater degree of abstraction, with precise figuration subdued in favour of an emotional sense of presentness.
Some of McAleer’s solo exhibitions include: Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast (1985, 2014, 2016); Gordon gallery, Derry (2006, 2014); Art First, London (1993, 2009); Paton Gallery, London (1982, 1983); Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool (1979, 1985); Hamilton Gallery, Sligo (2012); View Gallery, Liverpool (1999); Monaghan County Museum, Ireland (1999); Aldeburg Festival (1995); Ainscough Gallery, Liverpool (1995); Midlands Contemporary Art, Birmingham (1991, 1993); Turnpike Gallery, Leigh (1992); Sligo Arts Festival, Ireland (1990); Narrow Water Gallery, Co. Down (1990); John Clare Series, University of Liverpool (1990).
McAleer was awarded the J Andrew Lloyd Award for Landscape Painting (Royal College of Art) (1978), was a prize winner in the John Moores Exhibition XI (1978), was awarded a Major Award by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (1981), completed a mural commission for Royal Liverpool Hospital (1981) and became an Associate of the Royal Ulster Academy in 2006 and a full member in 2009.
