Anna Clough
I am an expanded painter and co-founder of the art collective ‘Gypsophila’.
My work explores the intertwining of process art and sublime experiences, through paintings expansion. The work is grounded in the northern countryside, a landscape that exudes sublime emotion. Throughout it lies forgotten industrial objects, reminders of our lands’ mining history and our own temporality. I investigate this liminal space as a physical connection point with the land. My practice explores this dualism, entangled in the emotion the land brings and the physicality of its resources and ecosystems. Our perception of the land being a binary of a subject or an object intrigues me as I believe it can be damaging and cause an unperceived disconnection. I believe this is a factor causing the climate crisis as our perception of land as a subject is harmful to the planet.
Painting is expanding and questioning its own acts. If the maker’s intentions are painterly, then whatever action they carry out is part of paintings discipline. I’m curious to see how an ecosystem could become a painterly act. The use of objects powered and created by nature allows an absurd questioning of the object and subject within the painting discipline as well as the natural world. The combination of woodwork and stitchwork within my practice draws on crafts and traditions which are becoming lost as we enter deeper into the Anthropocene.