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This piece is made with oak gall ink on gesso panel + silver gelatin photographic print on birch panel, it is part of an on-going series titled Mysteries Unfold Outside Of Time.
In 2018 a large piece from the same project titled Treasure In Stillness it won 1st prize at the Glynn Vivian Museum & Gallery Open - the additional photograph illustrates this. The prize led to an invitation by G.S. Artists to take part in their Artist Working programme, a month long residency in a large studio. I received an Arts Council Wales research & development grant to develop the project.
All three of these opportunities have had a huge impact on my creative practice for which I am very grateful.
Artist Statement
The initial imagery of my work draws upon woodland structures and natural elements. The presence of landscape and being in it is the source.
For a number of years, I lived immersed in an ancient oak woodland in West Wales. I wanted to make work ‘of the woodland’ and explored the process and chemistry of making oak gall ink, It is a luxurious and sensual material with antique histories which is also ecological and sustainable – nick-named, ‘ink of Kings, Poets and Monks’.
During this same period I took night walks during the full moon, and started making photographic works which I call ‘Moon Drawings’. The photograph forms the second part of the diptych.
The larger works are made with a slower tempo to my usual pace - the woodland is large, slow, immersive, all consuming and I seek to create a shimmer, a vibration through using close tones, using the support as light source as well as colour experience. With larger work I hope to engage physically and spatially as well as conceptually,
Seeking to develop a sustainable and ethical practice, I consider where materials come from and how they are produced. I continue to broaden my palette using locally foraged or home-grown botanical dye plants and dye the canvas prior to painting.
Within the process of making work I contemplate the materials, the immense value of our wild places plus the wider issues of plastic pollution and climate change.
The work is glazed and framed with a simple white painted wooden band.
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