Biography

Journeys: A Poem of the Sea

For all of us there is an increasing urgency to define a sustainable and personal relationship with the earth. As a child I felt a special relationship with the sea, and find myself returning to it again and again as subject matter for my drawings. To draw is my way of paying attention to the ever-changing relationship between sea and land, to take part in the flux of ebb and flow, mood and weather, to bear witness to rocks and shells wearing down to sand, to the sea casting up its daily offerings of sea-wrack and stripping away the traces of human and other presences. Drawing in situ allows me to share and honour the existence of all aspects of that place, and to transform that experience into the daily homage of making a drawing. The acts of drawing, rubbing and tracing dissolve the boundaries between the seashore and myself, and the immersion in the process of drawing becomes an immersion in the timelessness and flux of the sea and its environs. Back in the studio the subject of the drawing is no longer the object but the drawing itself, an assembling and layering of those times of immersion in a way that communicates the elusive, shifting nature of an experience that cannot be described in words.

Journeys: Fragile Equilibrium

The Fragile Equilibrium sculptures are a contemporary expression of the very long human tradition of making objects whose purpose is to intercede with the natural world. Human societies have always employed sacred, archetypal forms to pay homage to the beauty, mystery and savagery of nature, and to attempt to influence, control and establish harmony with it.
Inspired by the fragile and degraded ecosystem where I live, I try to find a point of balance between the conflicting needs of humans, animals and the land.
My working process is intuitive, process guiding form as I collect, clean, preserve, assemble and stitch materials, seeking to create a symbolic harmony to balance the competing needs of the earth and its inhabitants.