Patience and overview.
Keeping in mind the bigger picture when we have times to focus on aspects of work.
07/11/2026
We recently moved home and into a new town very close to the town I was born and grew up in. Even though the physical move, of ourselves and our things, seems straight forwards in a duration of time way…. I have been surprised to notice that for me the move has actually taken me many months to settle in…to reach a sense of what’s where and who is what, to almost mould the ground with enough depth to hold me with increasing confidence as I tried to find a job to make some money and find people’s and places I could settle to make some work.
Patience. I decided to read and take stock of the work I had done up until now. I forged smaller opportunities to explore different aspects of my work that could only add to further understanding and deepens leaders of my practise. I connected with the counterplay wonderful people and explored how my work is a product of play… that my work is no longer an investigation of process but of the bit before that - the action of Doing , the “model bit”. And this space is where I and so we play.
During this time- and landing in a new town- I decided to revisit my love of making photograms. …. From 25 years ago. I think I was keen to work with the light as material to understand how I would use this as a means to capture the present moment/ movement/ an action within a photogram. This ties into my work overall as I work live. In a place where I respond to light, space, volumic area and context. There must be common ground between the installed responsive larger work and the photograms I am to make.
The wonderful opportunity to share work at the Waft and the Weft at Bind Street Gallery… a learning of a different place and space, a work that adapted with repeated visits to make the work work and in a place I hadn’t anticipated. Yet … I thought to paint in the floor, below, underneath the high shelf that had become an arena to hold the creative activity, a small stage where anything could be added or moved , a shelf of a space where all alterations were OK. Underneath, I thought to mirror a ticker tape and replicate a shadow, to paint on the floor and take elements from above onto a lower level, so joining by eye moment, visual spatial connection that swept from the ceiling to the floor, the work then becoming as large as the height of the room, the room thus becoming embedded within the visual distance between the 2 assemblages works.
I then had an opportunity to take in 2 weeks on with a gallery during the PhotoFringe26.I have know Ricardo, this years director for @5 years in and off as me to and as friend when he worked at Aspex gallery in Portsmouth. I also saw this an an opportunity to make new photographic based work and to discover the visual link and influence my own area of practice of taking photos ( for 40 years) has in my work as a whole. The exhibition was planned as a live exhibition event, because usually my own work grows / morphs into the place it finds itself and I wanted to include interruptions of images made and given by visitors and local businesses and community groups. We could end up with a many multi voices collection of images of place that provides an authentic snapshot of place and current moment in time.
So, now, at the tail end of several outings, exhibitions, jam sessions et al…. I feel a period of reflection, new understanding and tiring these elements together is about to happen.
And, of course… I will now go ahead with the larger more complete works defining in 2027, taking within them the learning, the knowledge and deep layers I have played with today.
