Brough’s landscapes

Press, 8 October 1987, Page 17

Brough’s landscapes

“Sontbern Wi by / (tetberte Rrtegb, at the C4LA- Gab. lery,. aatil pctober Ifs. Reviewed In her exhibition St “Southern Landscapes ( ’87,” Catherine Brough edges closer to a walk on the wild slde. , Her ;Jreoccupation with landscape has concentratedon. the “untamed aspects” of Canterbury. Not the masterly overview ofWiA. Sutton’s contrived realism but the > private, intimate view of areas encountered as if by chance or surprise. Such views evoke Jn her a need to find some coherence from ’ the; chaos , of Nature and some unity In the , chaos iJ' Of paint

In the manner of FTan- - cis Bacon, she pulls and pushes paint found her . plane. .• She •searches for compcaitlons . 4Rat just hold the work ; ;togriher, for maitr that just subdue the paint and for Images that capture the land between the H'point of picturesqueness . and unavailability. , When the work appears to slip too easily into the landscape conventlqn, , Catherine Brough takes her paint to task, scruffing , and whacking it about the canvas in an expressionist attack of dashing brushstrokes, to dent an obvious reference to scene with scratches ’ and counterscrapes. The quest for “appropriate rather than

the fluent brush stroke,” no doubt She animates her work with possibilities and associations. Like Tracy Wilson, and others, she relies on paint’s effect But unlike Tracy Wilson — who has developed control through her serene passages of well-handled paint and line — Catherine Brough’s canvases are touched with many emotions. They, range from the peace;. of a conventional glimpse to the troubled, even, angry, response of crossed mark and wjld gesture, as if always doubting resolution. ( ; ■ Fortunately she has left the contrivance of arbitrary division for this newer assault course.