Sunday, 15 May 2011

Artist's Statement

My artistic practice is concerned with memory and loss.  My current psycho geographic textile piece explores genius loci (sense of place) as “a site of mystery [which] seek[s] to reveal the true nature that lies beneath the flux of the everyday”. [i]



Psycho geography is a multi-faceted artistic and literary movement which seeks “new ways of apprehending our urban environment”.  I have focused on a small street in Leamington Spa as a microcosm of changes in the urban landscape as small shops close under a multiplicity of economic and social pressures.  I am interested in how those imperceptible and irreversible changes to our urban landscape signal an ongoing change in our culture.   



My piece contrasts a horizontal movement across the topography of the street with a vertical descent through its past portrayed through a series of printed images layered like an archaeological dig.



The first layer is a plan view of part of the streetscape.   The second is a series of photographs of detail found within the street – some recognisable and others more ephemeral – the final layer represents memories and thoughts just beyond grasp. 



The three monoprints on the wall represent fleeting recall fixed in time by being formally encapsulated in a frame.



Influences include:  Colin Booth, Rachel Whiteread, Natasha Kerr, Lizzie Cannon and Carole Waller; writers – Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair; photographers – Ed Ruscha, John Gossage and Peter Fraser, and architects involved with the redrawing of place – Lebbus Woods and Daniel Libenskind.  







[i] Quotations from Psycho geography by Merlin Coverley (2010) Pocket Essentials

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