Drift

This is one of the ‘textile paintings’ shown in the Tempering exhibition at Barometer Gallery in 2020.

The works I exhibited in Tempering were made up of two parts: oil paintings and ‘textile paintings’, stemming from reflection on close associations with place.

The small Saltwater Poem paintings were made in 2008, in response to a place that my late mother held close. All her life she’d talk about this – her happy place – that coloured so much of her life and her world view, and to some degree, my own. These works are part of a series I showed for the first time earlier this year. I chose to add textiles to the paintings as a way of exploring, not only the haptic sensations associated with that place, and the memories that drift there still, but also the emotional breadth of her life.

The textile paintings are a land-based response to the oceanic focus of the Saltwater Poem paintings. Recalling sensations and nuances of feeling experienced while exploring the shoreline under changing conditions, they allude to the light and tidal changes I like to think of as the ‘temperaments of sand’.