#5 1979

Charles Clough made this collage painting, '#5', and it’s like a riot of color and form, a real free-for-all. It’s not trying to be polite, which I love. There's a physicality to it, a real tactile quality. The paint looks thick in places, like it's been slathered on, and then thin and transparent in others, creating a push-pull effect. It's hard to tell exactly what tools he used. It's like he was wrestling with the paint, letting it do its thing, and then stepping in to guide it. Check out the right side of the piece: there are dark, heavy strokes of black and blue that seem to cascade down the surface, almost like a waterfall. It feels chaotic, but there’s a strange order to it, too. Clough reminds me a bit of Francis Picabia. Both were interested in questioning the conventions of painting. This piece shows us that art is a conversation, a back-and-forth between artists across time.