Disappearing Species 2023

Can I imagine a landscape without species? It is a reverse painting! Instead of building up layers of paint, I am conscious of the reduction in all living matter as I set out to paint an imagined decline in a landscape without life.

These three paintings were made on the River Dart, Devon.

Mountain and Water

The ‘ghost nets’ are drawn with coloured pencil and charcoal over an ink wash background. The assembled collaged pieces represent this fractured environment. On an optimistic note the Chinese term for "landscape" is made up of two characters meaning "mountains and water." It is linked with the philosophy of Daoism, which emphasizes harmony with the natural world.

The Daoist conception of the world is that in a state of heightened spiritual awareness, man's ability to adjust his rhythm to the pulse of nature and to eventually merge with it will prevail.

Chinese artists have created mountains and water as essential manifestations of Nature. They have translated a deeply felt fundamental truth into visual images.

Waterfall Series

In the Chinese art of Feng Shui, waterfalls symbolise an abundance of wealth, prosperity and good fortune. The irony is that I depict the flow in the waterfall as “ghost nets”.

Ghost nets are derelict fishing gear that has been lost, dumped or abandoned at sea. Initially the view of Ghost Nets is as benign and ethereal. Underneath this is a more malign disturbing consequence. A perpetual moving killing zone, discarded Ghost Nets are ubiquitous in our oceans, a major cause of plastic pollution.

Although sombre in subject matter, in Ghost Net Waterfall (i), I aim to give the viewer optimism through the minimal application of the bright fluorescent orange pigment .

Despite my tendency for detail in my practice as an artist, I feel with this work I have successfully produced a powerful example of minimal seduction.

Ghost Nets

Ghost nets are derelict fishing gear that has been lost, dumped or abandoned at sea. Initially the view of Ghost Nets is as benign and ethereal. Underneath this is a more malign disturbing consequence. A perpetual moving killing zone, discarded Ghost Nets are ubiquitous in our oceans, a major cause of plastic pollution.

Hare Sketches

These sketches are some of the studies I made of the European Hare. Some from live species…albeit from afar and others from video footage and photographs.

Within these are original graphite sketches as well as dry point etchings which I then hand-apply 23ct Gold Leaf.

The drawings were part of the reference process of producing the large ‘Public Erasure - After Durer’s Hare Then and Now’ piece.

‘Public Erasures’

‘Public Erasures’ are drawings of endangered species which the public are invited to erase. This interactive piece seeks to draw attention to the increase in the number of endangered species worldwide and how it effects our ecosystem. The drawings are displayed and the public are invited to erase them, through workshops, as a metaphor for the loss of the species. The interactive element combined with the subject matter offers both a visceral and intellectual experience encouraging debate, personal public response and shared information.

Nine Public Erasures have been made to date including the Spiny Seahorse at Royal West of England Academy (RWA) -Bristol, the Grey Eared Bat at The Bath Assembly Rooms-Bath, the Slender-Billed Curlew at Studio KIND, Braunton, the Blue Ground Beetle at the Exeter Climate Hub - Exeter, the Emperor Penguin, the Fairy Shrimp and the Scarce Black Neck Moth at The Hide Studio,Kingsbridge, Wild and Honey Bees at “Bees for Development” Garden Party in Marlborough House,London and the Hedgehog at “The Forest of Imagination exhibition again at-The Assembly Rooms Bath.

The tenth ‘Public Erasure’ - European Hare being here at the Velarde Gallery in Kingsbridge. on 11th November 2023.

Future Erasures are ‘The Mountain Gorilla’ at The Victoria University, Kampala, Uganda, in December 2023 with a ‘Big Erasure’ program to be held at The Uganda Museum, Kampala and The Makerere and Victoria Museums alongside some site specific Conservation Parks at the end of 2024. The Act with Art Climate Festival in Newton Abbot in June 2024 and the Water Vole for The Habitat Group in Slapton, Devon in August 2024.

A final erased ‘Public Erasure -Beachcomber Beetle’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2022, in London.

In this exhibition you will find several examples of ‘Public Erasures’ after the event, having been partially erased. The drawings take on an air of pathos as the image is partially erased, smudged…with the interactive narrative remaining.

‘Public Erasure - After Durer’s Hare Then and Now’

In 1502 Albrecht DURER made what is now an iconic sketch of a Hare. This copy by me is my homage to Durer. His was a nature study of a young hare whose population was plentiful at the time. Today the Hare is under serious threat. Numbers are thought to have declined 80% since the late 19th Century.

Public Erasure - Bee 2023

This piece is what is left after the ‘Erasure’ which took place at Marlborough House Gardens, Pall Mall, London at The Bees for Development Charity Garden Party. Amongst those who erased were HM Queen Camilla, Kate Humble and Charlie Ross. Most people were nervous of rubbing too much out although there is evidence…the rubbings adding a mystery or pathos to the finished piece - on sale, framed, at the Disappearing Marks exhibition at Velarde Gallery, Kingsbridge.

Further Public Erasures (post) are also in the exhibition. These include Public Erasure - Spiny Seahorse and Public Erasure - Hedgehog

Public Erasure - Emperor Penguin

This is the first ‘paint-erasure’ of mine. I invited the public to choose from three different width paintbrushes and strike through a penguin with oil paint. The effect, as well as the emotive response to this metaphor for destroying life, from the participants, was to take them into the cold environment for a greater experience. A metaphorical obliteration of the Emperor Penguin species replaced with a bleak landscape of white paint.

And…last but not least in this exhibition at the Velarde Gallery, Kingsbridge, is:-

Greenfinch

Now on the IUCN Red List of endangered species.