All in United Kingdom
Being gifted Gaelic titles for some of my artworks while in Scotland has given me the key to a map of landscape. My accordion fold artist book Pilgrim Stranger with its Gaelic name Coigrich Taistealach has unlocked this landscape as a place of mystery which I have entered as a pilgrim.
You can never un-know what you know. In the midst of extraordinary beauty at my artist residency at Cove Park, I discover that just over the peninsular is the UK’s largest nuclear submarine facility. It is almost as if, in the midst of beauty, we need to scar the landscape in the most spectacularly catastrophic way. How to make art to reflect this?
It is surprising what art you make when asked to express your emotions, starting with anger. I hadn’t realised how angry I am with a government that denies climate crisis. My art started with bushfires and floods and ended with the happiness I felt being in this Hebridean landscape.
Art as activism sends a powerful message which can speak to the emotions of people. It is one way to bear witness to the events going on around me. I realised that the new work I am making in the studio is a direct result of watching a program, Glacial Narratives presented by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre in the Outer Hebrides.
Cornwall will forever be Jamaica Inn and Rebecca, The Shell Seekers and more lately, Doc Martin.
