PRUNELLA CLOUGH

Contextual focus point: Prunella Clough “Wire Tangle”

I got acquainted with the image of “Wire Tangle”. This picture was painted with oil on canvas.Is a very typical picture of this artist, a picture where the background is presented in a neutral color.One could conclude that the color palette is taken straight from the facade of an old building of rock or concrete.However, it is not flat, banal has its structure and soil.

Unfortunately, I cannot see this image live, so I cannot say anything about its structure, how it was created.  I only see one-dimensional reproductions on paper.

I know that Prunnella used a thick impasto, she daubed, scraped and scratched her paintings, and she used textured material like a sand, wire wool or wire mesh in her paint.

Wire Tangle for me is a picture with a perfectly painted background imitating marble, which even without the foreground element is painted with extraordinary care, there is a bit of energy and life by adding and lighting it with a bit of a yellow color. The palette of this color clearly shows it in a strengthened form, in the form of several of the graphic elements.In my opinion this element is such a metaphorical sun that draws children in the upper corner of the picture and then illuminate it with its rays from that point.

It is obviously a metaphor and the picture is not primitivistic but more industrial, it shows us the foreground object, which was added, painted or drawn in the final stage of image creation, I mean wire of course. We know from what the foreground object is from the title, but it is definitely a wire? For me it could be an unwanted drawing made by a child on the wall, or any random graffiti, but let’s pay attention to the compositions, it’s not accidental, it’s not central as it usually is, it would be too banal. The center of the line and its constraint is on one part of the image, only a few lines stretch into the rest of the image, the whole composition is balanced, so that the image does not lean in on one side, the image is balanced because the wire does not really move in relation to the background, there is no contrast between them, the color is perfectly combined and we have the impression of being there in this stone slab from the very beginning. I think that the whole composition is based on the exchange of how the first and second plan interact with each other, they must or are forced to coexist. It makes this picture and the whole composition unique.

I also saw many elements in common with Elizabeth’s Blackadder creativity in studying her paintings and the way of composition, the same way of presenting space, placing or adding flat elements in the image structure. In Prunnella we can see more industrial elements, while in Elizabeth we can find trivial items found in every home for me it is a very original and quite a new form of creating compositions. New to me because I just discovered it. Prunella in her paintings is more linear and we have the impression of not only paintings on canvas but also works created with the use of other drawing tools. Her works are perfectly balanced, although they often show very aggressive sharp forms, or very geometrical forms, but in a sense, we read them very softly, you can see in it a clear relationship where each element is integrated into the background in a very unique way. Even a person who does not like this kind of art, should get acquainted with its creativity, because you can extract a lot from it.

Prunella Clough “Wire Tangle”

https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks/wire-tangle-ii-207091

 

 

Part one: Exploring composition

Part one: Exploring composition

 

Project one: Observational drawing

 

For this exercise I found simple objects in my room, for example a table with a lamp and a bouquet of tulips in a glass vase, and I sketched the full view trying to investigate which subject from this view would be most important to explore. I then focused just on the vase with the tulips and I tried to make simple sketches suing different techniques and tools, I did this to see an interesting scene overall.

After doing sketches of the full bouquet I wanted to focus on more detail and so I cropped the composition to small details of the flowers. I started using colour pastels and made the pictures in different shades to see how the composition and colour work together. What I learnt from this exercise is if I find random object in a room I can, after doing some preparation work, create interesting work playing around with colour and lines, giving a slight abstract feel to an everyday object where not everyone can tell what the object is at first sight.

 

Project two: Using space

 

Before I started this project, I looked at work by Elizabeth Blackadder and Henri Matisse (who I will write about later). The first work I did was a sketch of my rug, which is placed on a light colour carpet. The carpet is a pale colour, but I was trying to notice the shadows that come from the window and give different shades to the whole floor, I tried to make an interesting colourful composition by diluting the felt pen to make the work look like watercolour. The main point of interested was the rug which was placed in an unknown plane but has a characteristic appearance.

Next, I drew a few pictures adding a few simple objects onto the carpet such as an apple and a small plant pot and adding fabric for texture to see how the whole background space has an effect on the small details placed onto it. I repeated this exercise with more focus on the background but still adding small objects at the front to give some meaning to the background and so the viewer had a reference point.

 

After this I moved onto a bigger picture with a bog bowl in the middle.

From this I learnt that concentrating on the background space can result in very interesting composition and work, normally I focused on the object and then built the space but with this I worked backwards doing the background and focusing on that only adding an object as a reference point. After this I did more work which combined the observation of work and using space and found a lamp in the kitchen with washing hanging up behind it and did drawing of this this was the kind of exercise in which I was meant to stick random objects to the wall and observe this by drawing it.

 

Project three: Changing the scale

 

In this exercise I started by finding some random objects, I started on the mantel piece which has a plant pot and books on it. I started drawing not focusing on drawing everything life like but to give the landscape a dramatic feel. I then, using charcoal, zoomed in drawing leaves of the plant with a mirror and reflection in the background, this didn’t work too well as I wasn’t sure how to scale up the picture right, but I thought I would find something interesting in the work.

I then moved onto drawing simple objects which I put on my table, the composition doesn’t depend on the scale as no one knows the size of the objects and where they are. The picture could be something mechanical and large or something small, but the picture doesn’t actually tell you what the object is, in reality it is a device used to put out candles. I then moved onto drawing a few pieces of gravel, which when placed on a flat surface you can make a composition out of them where the scale in irrelevant, I was trying to think of the picture as a whole and so I tried to find different lines and fill the space in an interesting way. I tried to do work with flowers which looked more like woodland and change the scene completely.

 

 

Project four: Human form

 

I started this by drawing my own feet and legs, the point of view was from the top as I was sat down, the perspective looks slightly strange because of this. I used different techniques but tried to show the viewer where all the muscles, bones and bends are. I wanted the drawing to be energetic and done in different colours.

I then drew the feet of my wife and slightly deformed and enlarged them on purpose, I also concentrated on the whole space around the feet giving it colour and vibrancy, I joined different tools and techniques in this drawing.

I then drew two nudes but concentrated on parts of the body not the whole body, I used pastels to do this. The first picture looks slightly deformed as I didn’t worry too much about the scale of each individual body part as I was trying to make something interesting and colourful. In the second picture I explored the composition properly without deformation but still looking for different and unusual lines in the drawing.