Path

MA Fine Art – Contemporary Dialogues at UWTSD Swansea College of Art.

This body of work is about chance, contingency, time, trace and transience. Walking the path over the course of a year, documenting changes in the clay and making the poultices became ritualistic acts of reterritorialization and healing.

The journey takes place along the broken path – curtailed, truncated at the point where the clay is smashed. There I inspect and record the clay, the ground; note changes produced by time, weather, leaf drop, bird droppings, insects. I turn and take the same path back.

The rhythms of this passage – the roots of the cherry interrupting/disrupting the route of the path – change in line with the weather. Sometimes I pick my way along the paving slabs carefully avoiding wet grass, muddy soil. When very wet I deliberately step onto tree roots between the slabs or quickly, delicately, step onto the grass beside the paving, avoiding broken, submerged slabs – lost to the elements.

Very occasionally it is dry enough to walk insouciantly – not caring whether feet make contact with slabs, roots, grass, soil or borders.