Darkness and Light
Darkness and Light evolved as a collaborative project about the complex fragility of the Earth. I worked together with Frances Carlile and Jane Harding, each of us making our own work, the aim was to create a reflective and imaginative space, using sculpture, print, drawing and film. While developing the works for Darkness and Light we developed a collaborative way of working together as critical friends. The exhibition that was the outcome of this project opened on 1st. July 2021 and closed on 1st. August It was held at Oriel Bledfa, Nr Knighton, Powys, LD7 1PA. http://www.bleddfacentre.org
In my work I used darkness and light as a metaphor for the intuitive perception of similarity in dissimilarity by bringing together elements that are separate in space and time to develop ideas, and insights through re-presentation in different media.
Living Forest is a twenty minute motion graphics video meditation. It was not intended that the viewer should watch it all the way through but just as long as it held their attention. The same way as one regard a painting or sculpture. I have since learned that some people have been using the video as part of their meditation practice and I have come to see them and conceive them as meditations.
I see Motion Graphics as a medium for the visual artist to work, in time, motion, and space. The videos use drawings, prints, still photographs and recordings collaged together to examine the theme of ‘Dark and Light’. The narrative is the living forest the images convey the interdependent nature of life and the co-dependency of living forms. The images were inspired by the many intertwined networks that exist in the forest. As well as the sprawling networks formed by the branches above ground, and the roots below there is the Wood Wide Web of mycorrhizal fungi which can link trees in shared networks both informing and feeding them. These web like networks reflect the patterns created by nerve systems and blood vessels in the body and the swirling gas, dust, stars and their solar systems that form a galaxy.
