K.B. Clear paints portraits of people found in archives.  

Painted like film stills from an obscure documentary,

these figures are caught in moments of pause.  

Clear arranges these works in non-linear sequences  

Narrative expectation is suspended 

Identities reimagined 

Subjects undressed and redressed 

Placed under a theatrical lens 

They become characters on a stage, their pose and presence observable  

Fact and fiction collapse into one another as a play unfolds  

Portraiture captures these social performances  

Portraiture captures them off-stage and in-between acts, too  

Clear paints these interplays between documentation and theatre.

K.B. Clear is an Irish painter currently completing a Master of Fine Art at the University of Oxford. Drawing on photographic archives, he reimagines historical subjects as characters, exploring portraiture as a space where documentation and theatre intersect. His work is held in public and private collections. In 2025, he completed an artist residency with the Glass Mask Theatre in Dublin.