My last body of work ‘Symbiosis’ explored a search for connection and belonging, the importance of living symbiotically with the natural world and with a human community. This was viewed from the context of living somewhere I felt little belonging or connection to, therefore it was a deep, perhaps melancholic, longing that was the driver to these thoughts and that body of work.
These first paintings from my new studio here on the Isle of Bute further explore thoughts on our relationships to place, nature and each other. Part of me expected to find answers to all these wonderings with our move, however in the six months we’ve been here I have instead amassed an even longer list of thoughts and questions. For every one answered, another is asked.
Throughout the process of making these works, with their unpredictable layers of watery ink and repetitive marks, an imprint of time and noticing, I have realised that some questions are more significant than their answers.
‘Confluence’ describes what is happening in my work and life at the moment -
Confluence noun (con·flu·ence)
: a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point
: a flowing together of two or more streams or rivers
: a situation in which two or more things join or come together
It feels like a natural movement from ideas of symbiosis, which dominated the paintings that followed my residency at Cove Park last year. Looking back, that time feels like the prologue to our move. Like all of the fear, anticipation, anxiety and subsequent realisation of comfort and ease, feeling embraced by a community, connected and aware of each other, nurtured and held, was a short trial run for this next chapter - as I find that same embrace here.
“The world is blue at its edges and in its depths. This blue is the light that got lost…
The colour of solitude and desire, the colour of there seen from here, the colour of where you are not.
Blue is the colour of longing, of distance”
- Rebecca Solnit ‘A field guide to getting lost’
I hope you enjoy this series of works, as a prologue to my solo show ‘Confluence’ which will open 12 August 2023 at Tighnabruaich Gallery. I look forward to sharing further works and having the opportunity to hear your thoughts.
