Charles Clough

Charles Clough’s paintings comprise many layers of appropriation and replication. Beginning with a photograph of an older artwork (his own as well as historical examples), he crops it, blows it up, alters it, and then uses it as a surface for painting. He then re-photographs the image and paints over it, often repeating the entire process again. This approach is devoted to what Clough calls the “the photographic epic of a painter as a film or a ghost.” With its smears and swirls of color, August 12 (#21) is a highly gestural painting that retains impressions of the artist’s fingers. Swathes of deep reds, ashy browns, and bright orange evoke the heat of summer and the onset of autumn foliage.