Migrant material - connecting matter with being

sMothered Earth and Earth's New Clothes part of the Migrant Material Collection

​Migrant Material and Perfect Imperfection
Exhibition Invite
July 16 2017 PV 11-1pm at Gallery in the Garden

A complete departure from the usual finely rendered mimetic portraits, this body of work has been material and process led and maybe a turning point from realism to a more conceptual approach of questioning who we are. 

Late 2015 I was asked to be resident artist for 12 months at Gallery in the Garden, Great Saling, in the heart of the Essex Countryside.  An opportunity with time and space to respond visually and creatively to the garden and its surrounding land. Rather than be inspired by what could be seen, I was more interested in the unseen, the forgotten, the discarded or the ignored. So I dug beneath the lush lawn on a journey of discovery, instigating a rethinking and questioning of material and making, geology and displacement.
​The act of finding, handling and scrutinising every exhumed object raised questions of how and why these materials got here.
Geological shifts and human intervention brought thoughts of farming, industry, settlements, displacement, mortality and consumerism.
Ultimately, a cycle of shifting matter, sometimes slow, sometimes rapid, but as I discovered, also inherently connected with not only us but the logical, the emotive - the immaterial. This subterranean excavation helped me to consider the importance of our need to connect directly with the waste and raw materials of our planet.
​This project released me from the constraints of the measured accuracy of realism and impersonating life, I was free to experiment, discover and question creating totally new work and possibly a new way of thinking.
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Migrant Material - Connecting Matter With Being