‘Folds’

Folds plays with scale by holding the traces and folds of the land in a space between the immediate and the transcendent, enjoying the tension and energy between the two, creating for the viewer a confusing and uplifting sensory visual experience.

I was working with & alongside the land, placing the tarpaulin outside during all weathers to collect and build marks and traces from the soil, plants, animals, birds and an overhanging Willow tree across the seasons, combining the marks from the immediate environment with painting, folding and creasing which I then repeated in three dimensions with the folded stack of agricultural animal feed sacks adding another dimension and a repetition/continuation of the sense of folding and creasing in the land, confusing, overlapping and playing with disrupting scale. The grid pattern across the tarpaulin is reminiscent of the folds of an analogue paper ordnance survey map.

The tarpaulin is secured to the wall with screws that are covered with wax embedded with fragments of wild flower heads adding a further tension with objects that are both strong and also soft.

Tarpaulin 280 × 320cm, moss, dandelion heads, soil, wax, sheep food sacks, emulsion, oil paint, iron

‘Heartwood’

Studio photo of a tarpaulin that I carried on my back and at times pulled across North Exmoor, mark making while immersed in ancient temperate woodland, bog, iron brown peat, streams, sheep fold, rain and rivers (this was the week before the heatwave)

Every evening I folded up the tarp to increase and preserve the fold lines reminiscent of creases in an analogue paper ordnance survey map, elements of scale and time entwined with the marks and materiality of the moor

Tarpaulin 280 ×320cm, Oil paint, emulsion, soil, natural pigments