Clive Wilkins is a British figurative artist. He is the author of The Moustachio Quartet, a series of novels that explore perception and the subjective experience of thinking; and with Nicky Clayton is co-founder of the Captured Thought, an arts and science collaboration. He is the first Artist in Residence in the Department of Psychology at The University of Cambridge, a position held since 2012. Wilkins, along with Clayton, was made Honorary Director of Studies and advisor to the China UK Development Centre in 2018. He has been awarded professorships by Nanjing University, Institute of Technology, China, Beijing University of Language and Culture, China, and Hangzhou Diangi University, China. Wilkins was made Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Integration of Science, Technology and Culture in 2020.
Education
Clive Wilkins was born in Wolverhampton, Staffs, and grew up and was educated in Corby, Northants. He went on to the Tresham Institute, Kettering, where he enrolled on the art foundation course at the age of 17. Amongst others, his tutors were David Imms, who taught painting and printmaking, and Norman Laing, who taught architecture and the history of art. He went from there to DeMontfort University, where he was tutored and greatly influenced by George Him, and also came into contact with Jerzy Karo, the Head of School for Graphic Design. Wilkins graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Graphic Design, before gaining an Art Teacher's Diploma and Post Graduate Diploma in Education.
Paintings
Wilkins has exhibited in the John Player Portrait Awards and in the BP Portrait Awards. Wilkins has produced portraits of the British pop artist Sir Peter Blake RA and Sir Howard Hodgkin CH CBE amongst others, and was presented to HRH Princess Royal during a visit to the Royal Holloway University in 1994. Wilkins' work appears in The Creatures in the Night, a published picture book sequence of 31 paintings, with accompanying text by the artist. The artwork, along with other works by Wilkins, formed a one-man show at Petley Fine Art Limited, Cork Street, London. He was described, in the foreword to the exhibition catalogue by Roy Petley as "one of the UK's leading figurative painters". Wilkins paintings have been exhibited in a number of venues, including the following:
Wilkins, along with Nicky Clayton, Professor of Comparative Cognition at the University of Cambridge, is co-founder of "The Captured Thought". The collaboration explores the nature of memory and perception with a particular focus on creativity. Important aspects of The Captured Thought's work have been highlighted in articles in 'The Guardian' newspaper in 2019 and in 'Die Zeit' magazine in 2020. The Captured Thought were invited speakers at The University of Vienna’s CogSciHub inauguration 2019, and India's National Brain Research Centre 16th Foundation Day. Wilkins interests are primarily in the psychology and structures of problem solving and the subjective experience of thinking. The collaboration has published the following:
