they’re small sketches both of visual and written language.

Tate Podcast: “Art of Memory.”

“I remember that walk very distinctively in terms of the distance, the feeling of that walk, the heat underneath my feet, the humidity of the place, and so frequently when I’m writing something in a analogous landscape I go back to that scene as a way of getting into whatever place I’m writing about.” 

The landscapes in my drawing are places that I repetitively revisit from the past, the works have different histories within them encompassing works with multitudes of stories.

Alongside my drawings I have been using an automatic writing technique at first I hadn’t understood this way of writing and it value. During the Tate St Ives collective which I took part in we participated in a series of automatic writing exercises regarding Cornwall.

Woosh wush through the bush, running along the lane.

 Rattle tattle on the water, clinking on the spray. 

Splish splodge on my leg, trickling down the stains. 

 Smush splush splashing on my face, running along the lane.

 Brish brush scratching on my leg, spitting in pain. 

 Itch stitch feeling blitzed, scuttling along the lane.  

 Squeak eek slipping the street, pulling up the lane.

 Huff Puff under my mask, sticking to my face. 

 Scratch dash through the door, flinging it off my face.

The automatic writing above is more rhythmic than some of my pieces. I like to think of the writing as written sketches, sometimes they are quite staccato and functionary other times they are leading and descriptive of the memory and emotionally charged. I use writing like this to help me form my work and in response to the works.