Being-with,making-with
This is an exhibition that will take place from 8 March to 1 May 2019 in Dartington Space Gallery, Totnes, Devon
I am joining with Karen Hawkins, Nicky Cornwell and Judith Israel in an exhibition of work which arose from an art.earth course Form and Context, with Chris Drury and Kay Syrad in May 2018.
My work includes drawings, prints, a video and flipbook, created from the water's edge of the Dart at Dartington.
My Statement for the show:
At the start of last year’s long hot summer, on the art.earth course Context and Form, I had to face up to the dilemma of an artist who works in and loves the countryside and natural world, who would describe herself as a landscape artist, if it were possible to escape the burden of that phrase in art history. Kay Syrad and Chris Drury challenged the group to attend to ‘Being’ (with the Earth), and to see the Earth as a Source, not a resource. I stopped drawing with pencil and paper (the ancient chestnut and bee hive), and fell into a trance, flowing down hill to the river. I found playmates at the muddy edge, embracing a greater force. The dilemma of an artist who makes marks is how to work in a landscape, leaving ‘no trace’. There are found marks, made by nature, and these can be recorded (on the very earth-resource-heavy camera). But in the end the simplest thing to do was to cast discarded stems into the flow of the river in an attempt to make drawings, or writing, on the surface. This seemed to become a dialogue between myself and the river, a call and response, a dance as I followed the river’s pace, responding to its direction, and every minute it wiped the words away and carried on as if I had never been there. The antithesis to the thesis of art as the making of beautiful permanent objects. But, when the call of an exhibition came, there came the problem of how to convert this ephemeral experience into something that conforms to the conventions of showing work in a human environment where the dialogue is between people, who are not even in the same space at the same time. I have settled on using various methods for human time-distant communication; video; wall pictures; a book; postcards sent by post. But when I return to Dartington I’ll be drawn back to that other dialogue with the wild water.
I am joining with Karen Hawkins, Nicky Cornwell and Judith Israel in an exhibition of work which arose from an art.earth course Form and Context, with Chris Drury and Kay Syrad in May 2018.
My work includes drawings, prints, a video and flipbook, created from the water's edge of the Dart at Dartington.
My Statement for the show:
At the start of last year’s long hot summer, on the art.earth course Context and Form, I had to face up to the dilemma of an artist who works in and loves the countryside and natural world, who would describe herself as a landscape artist, if it were possible to escape the burden of that phrase in art history. Kay Syrad and Chris Drury challenged the group to attend to ‘Being’ (with the Earth), and to see the Earth as a Source, not a resource. I stopped drawing with pencil and paper (the ancient chestnut and bee hive), and fell into a trance, flowing down hill to the river. I found playmates at the muddy edge, embracing a greater force. The dilemma of an artist who makes marks is how to work in a landscape, leaving ‘no trace’. There are found marks, made by nature, and these can be recorded (on the very earth-resource-heavy camera). But in the end the simplest thing to do was to cast discarded stems into the flow of the river in an attempt to make drawings, or writing, on the surface. This seemed to become a dialogue between myself and the river, a call and response, a dance as I followed the river’s pace, responding to its direction, and every minute it wiped the words away and carried on as if I had never been there. The antithesis to the thesis of art as the making of beautiful permanent objects. But, when the call of an exhibition came, there came the problem of how to convert this ephemeral experience into something that conforms to the conventions of showing work in a human environment where the dialogue is between people, who are not even in the same space at the same time. I have settled on using various methods for human time-distant communication; video; wall pictures; a book; postcards sent by post. But when I return to Dartington I’ll be drawn back to that other dialogue with the wild water.
