ocean process (2004-2006)
A multi-part installation which deals with the processes at work within the earth's oceans. This was part of a joint project with three other artists, in which we spent a week working along a section of the North Devon coast, gathering materials for a subsequent exhibition at Broomhill Art, Barnstaple.
Water, wind, sun and lunar power. Erosion, deposition, incorporation. Life & death. The ocean: 80% of the earth's surface.
process 2 - dispersal
I devised a simple visual process to work with a photographic image in a manner which mimicked the cycle of the tides in dispersing found materials.
A photographic image, printed with water-soluble inks onto blotting paper, is clipped into an electromechanical mechanism. Over a period of several hours, the print is slowly lowered into a tray of water. As the water penetrates the paper, the inks are spread (as a chromatogram). The print is raised, then the process is repeated. Over many cycles the image is dispersed, only a vestigal element remaining.
I am fascinated by the human need to leave a mark. Carved names and inscriptions found on local rock faces form the basis of the images used. They date from 1885 to 2006 and are at once, practical marks which can be captured and processed, and metaphors for the materials and detritus which we scatter about the earth.
Over the course of the exhibition many images were processed, each causing a small amount of ink to be taken into the water tank. As time passed the water became visibly discoloured. What was initially perceived as an infinitely repeatable cycle is perhaps not so.
The sea does not destroy, it disperses. Entropy at work.