Cluett, Shelagh
Shelagh Cluett’s early sculptures range from ambitious room-scale installations to elegant vertical structures crafted from wire, thin steel, aluminium, brass and copper. Accompanying her larger works are smaller ‘thinking pieces’, which explore different colours, shapes and ideas.
In the mid-1980s, Cluett’s work began to move away from linear forms, to explore the influences of her travels in the Far East. These trips provided her with a new wealth of imagery and an intensified palette, lending greater freedom to her sculpture. Colours gained greater importance; applied to her hammered metal surfaces, they cause the work to shine and glisten. Light of My Life, 1984 is a small wall-based sculpture, crafted from a single sheet of sculpted metal and painted blue. A series of drilled holes offer a glimpse of copper beneath. The piece forms a shimmering fish’s tail; Cluett’s ideas around the sea and coastline were far-reaching and she was specifically interested in the flux and instability of the strand, the space between land and sea. This fish could be viewed as a treasure, beached on a vertical shore.
- Artwork Details: 25 x 14.3 x 5cm
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- Material description: Painted and gilded aluminium, copper
- Credit line: © the Shelagh Cluett Trust. Image courtesy of the Shelagh Cluett Trust and greengrassi, London
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- Accession number: ACC22/2019