Prunella Clough: the recent exhibition at Olympia shone some welcome light on a neglected artist

'I like paintings that say a small thing rather edgily', is perhaps one of Prunella Clough's most famous remarks. That is not to say that her quotes are particularly well-known, for this complex and underrated artist evaded public recognition during her lifetime, and still remains an obscure figure within the tradition of European twentieth-century art. Although she was consistently admired by artists and collectors throughout her long career, she never courted publicity: a fiercely private individual, she had no desire to achieve the celebrity status bestowed upon some of her contemporaries (Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon et al.), preferring instead to get on with the job in hand. The recent exhibition held at the Olympia Fine Art Fair was organised to help bring Clough's work into the public consciousness and provided a pleasing overview of this enigmatic artist.

There is indeed a certain sense of the edge in Clough's work: her early exploratory landscapes and seascapes with their shades of romanticism through to her large and ebullient 'abstract' canvasses of the 1980s and 90s all possess something of the essence of things. Clough looked around and through the mundane and the unremarkable--the everyday objects that she championed--and presented them as extraordinary and magisterial.

The show was hung chronologically in the main, and although the works sometimes crowded each other it was pleasing to be able to follow the artist's shifts in focus as one traversed the space. Clough's early works are marked by a subdued palette of largely browns, greys and greens. Predominantly figurative, she tentatively recorded the light, texture and physicality of the land- and seascapes around her. Fisherman with skate (1947) possesses a cubist simplicity in the central placement of the fisherman against a backdrop of yellow sand, absorbed in the gutting of his fish. Four fishermen (c. 1946-49) is haunting and otherwordly, reminiscent of the solemn and reverential still-lifes of Giorgio Morandi. Clough explored light and form and translated them into painterly substance and meaning; fishermen and industrial workers become elegant and poetic, seamlessly woven into the mechanical landscapes in which they toil. Fishermen with scales (1951) and Lorry with ladder (c. 1953) are outstanding paintings. Both compositions display an astonishing strength of design; the colours are still subtle but they are applied with startling effect. Luscious and rich, the very painterliness of the paint imbues the canvasses with a powerful visual impact that transcends the ordinary.

As one moves around the display, Clough departs from depictions of people, although humankind is still referred to at almost every turn. She always regarded herself as a figurative painter: 'nothing that I do is "abstract". I can locate all the ingredients of a painting in the richness of the outside world, the world of perception'. Indeed her mysterious motifs and amorphous shapes are grounded in the physical--the human presence in many of her works is at times overwhelming. Irridescent (sic) (1987) features a curious brightly coloured mass throbbing in the centre of a dark, fractured background. Fence/bush (1988) positions a luminous indefinable shape expelling green shards of itself into the brown density of the paper. The overtly visceral qualities of these works--and many others on display--are impossible to miss; they pulse with a primeval vitality.

Although the journeys her paintings made from inception to completion were sometimes fraught, there is an ebullience about her later canvasses. Plastic bag (1988) is quintessential Clough. The lowliest everyday object becomes something beautiful and 'other'. The bag--with vertical pink and white stripes--drifts to the left against a backdrop that could be an ageing and dilapidated wall ravaged by graffiti. To the right floats its spiky antithesis, providing a visual echo, and a twitch of humour, anchoring the composition.

Clough employed thick impasto, she daubed, she scraped, she gauged and scratched, and she obliterated, experimenting with a variety of mixed media to create a frenzy of texture. So it seemed rather a shame that the organisers decided not to list the materials she employed in individual works in the accompanying captions. However this small criticism did nothing to inhibit my overall delight in a show that invited me to be bewildered and inspired by Clough's take on the world. I hope she would have been pleased.

The exhibition 'Prunella Clough: Seeing the World Sideways' was at the Fine Art and Antiques Fair, Olympia, from 2 to 7 March 2004. The catalogue, by Angus Stewart, was published in the February 2004 issue of APOLLO

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