Ear to ocean

Ear to Ocean

Summer Studio Cortes, 2021

Returning over and over again - the vista is never the same. Maybe there is an island in the distance or a rock, a tree - constants. But there is something we haven’t seen this time washed-up on the shore, and the hue of the green is softer too. Or this past winter at another time - we all went down to the coastline and were confused and amazed when billions of herring roe washed up on the shore.

At another time I might find some bleached coral or some teal rope.

I draw a line on a surface - something definitive, something even assured and then I pour in water. I add diluted pigment. The water moves across the surface; it responds to the line. Then the water with the air and light and/or me tilting the canvas, captivated by gravity and its measures, influences flows and directions. For a moment there is tension and release. It is a conversation with water. In the end there is a painting - something very simple - an edge like the horizon and then the water moving around this edge.

I set up somewhere to work - somewhere to assimilate the vista and let it move through me - through material investigations. I haul materials into the studio. And into the studio also goes the air - the air damp and fecund or the air hazy from the forest fires.

Last year our house got cell reception when the cell tower went up. This also goes into the studio.

The works in Ear to Ocean range in materials - watercolour to found materials to video and are connected thematically by the elemental and the tail-ends and wash-ups from North Pacific Coastal winds. Investigations move from basic forms, forms that might incite the body to touch, to contemporary modes of production and the influence of AI.

Cetus, 2024
Approximately twelve feet in diameter
Ground Charcoal (collected from forest fire on Quadra Island), bleached coralline, charred cedar sprays and fern fronds