Margate

A connective element in my work is the appreciation of the everyday, the mundane and the overlooked, a validation of the unseen or unnoticed, hence my attraction to soil, weeds, decay and wild mushrooms. Time is also a significant feature: the speed or painstaking slowness in making a piece; the reduction of time through animation or its unravelling through still images; the continuity of nature’s cycles and ultimately the accumulation of stories over the years.

The processes of mark-making and direct involvement with materials are crucial. It is process-led, setting up components to allow for chance occurrences: a fabric might pick up ink in a particular way or drawing-ink might spread and dry in an unpredictable form, specific to the medium’s characteristics. This then feeds into the concept of a piece, for example my multiple drawings of the Inky Cap mushrooms’ transformation, is created with pen and black ink, reflecting the nature of its slow collapse into a pool of dark, sticky liquid.

In the past few months I have been intentionally ‘not knowing’ what I will produce when I start making. I have tried to work without preconceived ideas and without censoring them, hence the need for speed and freshness in my approach. This has led to the creation of these Margate monoprints. Margate is a place I have visited regularly since I was a child and is full of unfolding memories. The flexibility of working free-hand with fast, direct actions of scraping, pushing and wiping the ink, enables internal responses to the seascape to manifest in these external gestures.

My intention is to convey the joy of mark-making, to bring attention to details in the periphery of our gaze and to encourage the sensation of being swept up in the wider story of nature.