2022 onwards
I often use quick, gestural, brushed ink drawings as a way to loosen up in the studio, or just a way to switch off and relax – creating trailing, fluid lines with brush (or stick, or finger, or feather…). I’ve always loved Japanese calligraphy, that place where movement, meaning and meditation meet with soulful expression and a sense of grounded purpose. Unwilling to throw these impromptu creations away, at some point I began gathering objects from around the studio – which was also becoming a space to store ‘treasures’ from my other pastimes (beachcombing, fossil hunting, geological study) – and arranging these within the ink creations, to make something that probably correctly sits somewhere between collage and assemblage.
These creations are completely ephemeral, they only exist from the moment I am satisfied with the placement of the last object, until I clear everything away from my desk that same day. Then their only record is as a digital photograph. I could never create exactly the same work again, even if I was careful and observant enough to place the same items into the same spots, the lighting in my studio would change, or the exact angle of the camera, or the way I make small corrective photo editing adjustments would vary and change the resultant image.
I enjoy this precarious, fleeting nature of their existence. Their temporality lends freedom to the hand, lightness to the heart, optimism to the creative process. They are both creations and meditations.
Studio Snapshots
