Kennel Cough: Plum Cloutman // London

In Kennel Cough, Cloutman distils this idea of off-kilter domesticity to a sharp point. Her

images are small, some no bigger than 13 by 8.5cm. At first glance, they are filled with

quotidian activities. Women take baths and couples complete crosswords. But look for

longer and a strong sense of disquiet creeps in. These are not contented or uncomplicated

moments of repose but glimpses into fraught terrain, riven with tensions and power

asymmetries. Figures remain locked into intense, mutual looks, or else gaze out with

heavy-lidded eyes beyond the edges of the image. Some were modelled on photos from a

series of books about 1970s doll’s houses. Others exist in an imagined instance of

absurdity: a man running away from his trousers, a pair of houses observed through a

window morphing into stocky human faces.

- Excerpt from an essay written by Rosalind Jana