The residency at the Fish Factory gave me the time and space to connect with myself and the landscape around me. The unprecedented time and isolation acted as a lens on feelings of melancholy and loneliness, two themes current in my work.
I felt a connection with the landscape. Iceland is a land torn asunder at its centre, resulting in two plates drifting apart. I especially sympathised with the glaciers and their visible traces; the fjords. I thought in geological time and used geological time as a metaphor for my own sloth.
I tend to work in oil, but here I worked mainly in pencil and also in video. The shading required in a pencil drawing is very labour intensive and slow, mirroring the slowly grinding landscape.
I didn’t make massive amounts of work whilst in Iceland, but rather learned about myself, and found a footing and a route in my practice.
Thank you Arthur, it was a pleasure having you here, we will miss your humour. Until the next time
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