—Adrift/əˈdrift/
to float without being either moored or steered
2020 recipient of The Ingram Prize, Adrift explores narrative and place, evoking a felt history through printmaking, alternative photography, and sculpture. Each work tells a story, exploring our relationship with place, constructed through personal and collective experience.
It is an exhibition and expansion on the themes explored by her winning/selected work Banksia Seeds and builds on inspiration found within the Ingram Collection; specifically, in the works of Charles Ginner and William Turnbull.
This collection began in the Blue Mountains, documenting the approach of the 2019 bushfires that ravaged New South Wales, Australia, where she witnessed nature’s capacity for renewal, regrowth and resilience in the wake of natural disaster and human impact. In the following months, upon returning to the UK, it later evolved, taking on a wider meaning, representing the strength and perseverance not only within the landscape, but ourselves.
To this effect, there are two stories being told – one is physical, tangible, and geographic. Another is metaphorical – how we approach the very idea of where we are and the stands we take when we near our edge.
This exhibition was supported by the Ingram Art Foundation & Canada Council for the Arts.
I grew up surrounded by forests so thick the light scattered the ground in pinholes like stars across the sky. The light was some of the most uncanny in the days leading up to the fires, like dawn and dusk coincided. The ash turned the sky orange and purple and fell like snow onto the ground and I found I was reminded of home in the strangest of circumstances. There was such a strange hope in that.
The canopy is sacred
is a beautiful term that I learned during my research in Australia. It’s a synonym for undergrowth: plant life just above the forest floor. But suggests so much more. Shrouded in shadows, it is another world. It is filled with ferns and bracken, bark and fungi. It collects and cracks under your feet. It is a sound I’d never experienced. And in such solitude, it follows you. It keeps you company. It gives you away. It is the understory that grows despite us. And it is the understory that burns. It is this dichotomy between the eerie and the idyllic I sought to emanate in this new body of work. For me, it is a juxtaposition that came to embody lockdown. This isolation that is both silent and deafening, still and frantic- telling a story that is both individual and universal.
Understory
Canopy I
above left The Blue Mountains in Australia get their name from the Eucalyptus trees that dominant most of the national park. Their leaves hold oil which is released and aerosolised in the heat. This midst gives a distinctive blue hue to the region. It dries the air and feeds the fire.
Canopy II
above right These amazing marks are inscribed by the movements of a moth that burrows down into the trunk. These patterns are revealed as the bark sheds annually, showing the story of this symbiotic relationship. This shedding is an adaptation to regulate against temperature variations, insulating in the cold and cooling in the heat. The intensity of “scribbles” tells how active the moth was, thereby showing its health, the tree’s, and that of the surrounding environment.
Canopy III
right There was a grove of trees near where I did my residency. Angophoras and gums growing from fallen trunks. This is called “resprouting,” an adaptation where dormant buds in the bark awaken in fire. This leads to clusters and coves that circle each other and the original plant. In its centre were three large trunks. It’d been discovered genetically they were the same tree, its roots circling at our feet. Locals called it the 3 witches (from Macbeth), and it truly did feel like magic was being conjured from the ground.
Banksias
Banksias are pyrophytic plants, meaning they have evolved to germinate in fire, leading them to not only survive, but thrive, despite the devastating bushfires. Originally, this was a sculpture in 3 states: The seed before, during and after the fire, showing the resilience and strength of nature. Selected for the 2020 Ingram Prize, these seeds mark the beginning of the collection here. As the year progressed, I became curious about how we imbue objects with meaning and value, and how much of that is self-imposed. I wanted to create a work reminiscent of a faberge egg: precious and yet, so far out of context it became fetishised. With support and funding from Canada Council for the Arts, I was able to collaborate with local goldsmiths to learn about patination, precious metal casting and gold plating.
Sculpture Variations include: 24K Gold, Sterling Silver, Polished & Patinated Bronze
Survey series
This series of 18 etchings serve as a document, a still moment of preservation as the Gospers Mountain fire spread southwest. During six short weeks, the fire grew from 20,000- 300,000 hectares. These are the days before the fire. The days we waited and the world we captured. It is a portrait of a landscape forever changed.
The Lightbox Museum
4 December - 4 January 2022
Exhibited
The Lightbox Museum , U.K.
Arusha Gallery, U.K.
Haarlem Art Space, U.K.
Hancock Gallery, U.K.
Bilpin International Grounds for Creative Initiatives, Australia
Woolwhich Contemporary Print Fair, U.K.
Edinburgh Printmakers, Scotland
Actinic Festival , Scotland
Awards
Ingram Prize
Queen Sonja Print Award (finalist)