In Conversation with Boat Cove

How can we communicate directly with our environment? This is the question that ignited my curiosity many years ago and ultimately led to the development of the monoprint technique that I now call the Turin Process and this exhibition ‘In Conversation with Boat Cove.’

As a visual artist I had so often `taken´ inspiration from the world around me. More recently, this has felt like a one way dialogue. My ongoing hearing loss has contributed to my growing sense of isolation and a profound need to connect with my surroundings in a way that circumnavigated my six senses. I wanted my art to become more of an exchange of ideas. A two way process where the environment contributed directly to the work.

‘In Conversation with Boat Cove’ is my first body of site specific work where I attempt to conduct a two way dialogue.  A collaboration between ‘self’ and ‘place’. I was drawn to a small ancient hawthorn copse adjacent to Boat Cove near Perranuthnoe in Cornwall. An old dry stone wall created a boundary between the trees and the ocean. I embedded 12 sheets of prepared paper at the site and left them for exactly seven days before collecting them, during which time they had acquired natural marks of their own. The marks were created by a combination of the weather conditions and the way the site interacted with them. I call these marks ‘natural data’ because they are not created by me.

The resulting artworks are the result of that dialogue between myself and Boat Cove.  The dialogue consists of the ‘natural data’ created by the site and my interpretation of those marks. I do as little as possible so as to offer a ‘sympathetic ear’ to the place. I then ask what the site is trying to say to me.

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