Journeys through creativity
Clifford’s artistic odyssey spans continents, disciplines, and decades, a testament to a creative spirit honed in the crucible of commercial design yet perpetually reaching toward the personal expanse of fine art.
Clifford built a formidable reputation in London at Trademark, crafting the iconic Sasol brand identity and shaping brands like Sony Ericsson, De Beers, and Anglo American. In 2003, he co-founded Firedog Creative Studio in Soho, later expanding to Shoreditch and Cape Town, leading projects for global giants such as the BBC, Deutsche Bank, and Sony. Returning to Cape Town in 2016, he pivoted to fine art, embracing oil on canvas to explore bold, personal narratives, reconnecting with the raw energy of his graphic novel-inspired youth.
Clifford’s latest series of portraits feature a series of powerful, unapologetic women. These are not mere likenesses but provocations, each canvas a dialogue between desire and defiance. The women who inhabit his work are at once sexual and sovereign, their eyes piercing through the viewer with a mesmerising challenge. They exude a gritty, art-rock irreverence—a defiant stance that is both alluring and aloof. This is femme wielding power with a reckless edge, their angelic undertones evoking Venus yet refracting through a contemporary lens of fiery independence.
Background
This aesthetic owes a debt to Clifford’s formative years, a return to the raw energy of his youth.
At twelve, in Sea Point, he devoured imported 2000 AD comics from CNA newsagents, captivated by Simon Bisley’s rock-and-roll sci-fi, Jamie Hewlett’s irreverent pop, and Carlos Ezquerra’s visceral lines, all filtered through Frank Frazetta’s mythic lens. These, alongside metal and hard rock album covers, sparked a cross-disciplinary passion, echoed in his DJing and curated digital collections.
His formal journey began at Cape Technicon in 1993, where he earned a Lourie for illustrations blending precision and flair. After graduating, he honed his craft as a typographer and packaging artist working for four years in Cape Town under Gerhard Schweckendiek. In 1997, London called. At Trademark he helped create global brands. A sabbatical in the East followed by the founding of Firedog Creative, a design agency which operates to this day.
Returning to Cape Town in 2016, drawn by family and the Mother City’s inspiration, Clifford reconnected with his gritty, graphic novel-inspired roots. The passing of his parents in 2022 deepened this shift, fueling a deliberate fine art practice. Oil on canvas became his medium to explore an unbridled vision, free from commercial constraints.
Now, as he stands at this career watershed, Clifford’s practice is both a reclamation and a reinvention. The tools of his commercial past—precision, symbolism, narrative—are recast in service of a deeply personal inquiry. His canvases, alive with smoky confidence and hard-won grit, signal an artist shedding the skin of expectation to embrace the unruly vitality of his origins. In this fusion of mastery and rebellion, Clifford steps into contemporary art as a voice exploring its boundaries with a quiet audacity.
