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M6-M3

Full Circle 2 below lights from Grange

Richard and Paul setting up Full Circle 2

Richard and Paul setting up Full Circle 2

Biography

When I first moved to the area, observation of the light and tidal action on Morecambe Bay and the Kent Estuary had an immediate impact on my work. Initially I painted abstracted, yet identifiable images and representations of a mostly recognisable landscape. Continued observation revealed other aspects and dynamics at work within the chaotic tidal ebb and flow that has parallels with human, existential experiences.

Within the tidal landscape, and upon the exposed mud, lie the layers of sediment, the cuts and scoured scrapes and forms resulting from the water acting upon it. Unpredictable and random, yet creating familiar shapes and forms that can be found echoed in larger scale landscapes such as the expansive river deltas, visible only from space. The same shapes and forms formed by the action of water within a square metre of mud are replicated on the scale of major river estuaries. These natural forms and movement create universally chaotic marks and structures.

As my work developed, I began to pour paint, or flood it with turpentine to allow the pigment to wash and settle and find its own place on the canvas, echoing the tidal action of water on mud.

Over the last couple of years, in addition to work on canvas, I have been making large-scale abstract drawings, as I have tried to find a way of mark making that replicates the automatic and chaotic nature of pouring paint, which is analogous to the tidal processes.

Most of the marks within each drawing are, once pre-determined, made automatically, without thought or deliberation.

The drawing emerges not by continuous design and re-design, but by taking decisions before the start of the drawing, for example to draw freehand, parallel, vertical or horizontal lines. These are then drawn, then erased, rubbed or degraded and altered without thought for the overall appearance of the drawing. These automatic processes within the drawing replicate the chaotic nature within the landscape.

The drawings also contain formal, structural elements that stand in dynamic tension against the automatic, chaotic marks. As one observes the drawing, taking in the marks on the page, the human brain seeks to impose its own formal sense, attempting to impose a meaning, or structure, to the meaninglessness of the drawing.

These meanings imposed by the observer can relate to the visual nature of the drawing or be based on emotions or thoughts evoked by the drawing. The drawings become transports but it is often the apparently insignificant marks made in the process of production that anchor the observer to the simple reality of pigment and surface - the here and now.

I have been trying to take the learning from these drawings and developing land art installations within the estuary landscape and other experiential projects in collaboration with other artists.

This year, I have begun wild swimming and am involved as a result in collaborative projects. With Richard Light and Alan Greenwell, we are making a film based on wild swimming and altered states of experience, and Richard and I are undertaking a performance related project - Swimming Home - swimming across lakes and tarns in Cumbria from Loweswater to Gurnal Dubs. Our blog can be viewed at

http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/459997

I am currently a studio member of Green Door Studios, Kendal