I studied Fine Art (Sculpture) in London in the 1990s before receiving a scholarship to the British School in Rome in 2001. I stayed in Italy and now live and work from home in Tuscany. My work has always used images from the natural world to describe emotions and states of being. I am interested in where animal meets mineral or meteorological; the idea of a living earth, used as a metaphor or as an expression of human feeling and predicament. This seems particularly pertinent now as we face climate change and a possible breakdown of ecosystems.
This work is a series of 4 collages made during these recent weeks of ’social isolation.’ I find this phrase upsetting, but here it’s relevant to the images - isolation/ isola/ island.
We are 4 in my family and I was very aware of each person’s response and changing moods to the lockdown experience. ’No man is an island,’ but each of us suffered loneliness and their own personal drama, sometimes visible and sometimes hidden, so I placed the dark rock or island in the centre of each image as a solid and lonely presence. I am drawn to these basic and lumpen forms around which other, more complex, ’elements’ can gently ripple or come crashing down. The seas are red for danger and bleeding and for fire and rising temperatures.
The 4 images should be framed separately, but hung close together. They represent the family of four, alone and together, sometimes calm and sometimes raging.