The True Listener

The True Listener 2020, Oak gall ink on gesso panel + silver gelatin photographic print on birch panel.JPG
The True Listener 2020, Oak gall ink on gesso panel + silver gelatin photographic print on birch panel.JPG

The True Listener

£4,250.00

Oak gall ink on gesso panel + silver gelatin photographic print on birch panel

91.5 x 180cm

2019

Signed and titled on reverse

Shipping to be arranged separately.

See below for the story behind the work.

Purchase

This piece is made with oak gall ink on gesso panel + silver gelatin photographic print on birch panel, it is part of an on-going series titled Mysteries Unfold Outside Of Time.

In 2018 a large piece from the same project titled Treasure In Stillness it won 1st prize at the Glynn Vivian Museum & Gallery Open - the additional photograph illustrates this. The prize led to an invitation by G.S. Artists to take part in their Artist Working programme, a month long residency in a large studio. I received an Arts Council Wales research & development grant to develop the project.

All three of these opportunities have had a huge impact on my creative practice for which I am very grateful.


Artist Statement

The initial imagery of my work draws upon woodland structures and natural elements. The presence of landscape and being in it is the source.

For a number of years, I lived immersed in an ancient oak woodland in West Wales. I wanted to make work ‘of the woodland’ and explored the process and chemistry of making oak gall ink, It is a luxurious and sensual material with antique histories which is also ecological and sustainable – nick-named, ‘ink of Kings, Poets and Monks’.

During this same period I took night walks during the full moon, and started making photographic works which I call ‘Moon Drawings’. The photograph forms the second part of the diptych.

The larger works are made with a slower tempo to my usual pace - the woodland is large, slow, immersive, all consuming and I seek to create a shimmer, a vibration through using close tones, using the support as light source as well as colour experience. With larger work I hope to engage physically and spatially as well as conceptually,

Seeking to develop a sustainable and ethical practice, I consider where materials come from and how they are produced. I continue to broaden my palette using locally foraged or home-grown botanical dye plants and dye the canvas prior to painting.

Within the process of making work I contemplate the materials, the immense value of our wild places plus the wider issues of plastic pollution and climate change.

The work is glazed and framed with a simple white painted wooden band.

Shipping is charged at cost and will be calculated separately from the purchase price.