Skin of Earth

These drawings emerged from a period of travel for work, taking in new landscapes and beginning to think of how accumulated images and memories mingle and process themselves to create new places, private and personal realms existing only in the mind’s eye. 

This conception of the “mindscape” has gone on to become a central theme in my work.

Around this time, I was also thinking about how to apply the principles of sculpture to my drawings, staying as close as possible to the original materials. 

Rather than using applied colour to create images, I wanted to manipulate the material itself to evoke the landscape features. So, the grain of the wood is enlisted in tracing the topography and the clouds. Charcoal – burnt wood – is used to draw the other landscape elements.