In the ‘Paintings’ of 1987, Brian Clarke invokes the cross motif. He notes in 2019:

‘The cross is the last word in structure. You’re naturally drawn towards that if you have an architectonic sense in your art: it’s irresistible. Once you’ve understood it, and the orthogonal geometries of structure just become part of your second nature, you can really move on, embrace the fluid and the spatial.’