Between Forests

In March 2024 two friends and I set ourselves a challenge of just six weeks to make work for and curate and exhibition ourselves in London. We fortunately acquired a space in Walthamstow called Garage Gallery and had just a short amount of time to prepare everything. This was a first for us but we were eager to see what we could create. As one of my friends lived I Walthamstow and we had to connect it to the area, we though to research into our own local ancient woodlands and make work responding to this. We wanted to ask questions on the subject of our relationships to nature, how we connect with the land we are living on and the impact these have on us. I walked through areas of the New Forest about 40 minutes from home. Walking can be a great way to practice meditation- listening to the silence, being aware of each step you take, using your senses to immerse yourself. It all comes back to looking, a practiced way of seeing the world. Observing what is, a sharp focus, full attention and awareness to what one is seeing. As this allows another part of us to see. Such attention is what is drawn on paper- hours dedicated to a painting responding to what we are seeing. You are forgetting the name of your subject and stepping out of your mind. I did not make too many observational drawings to allow time to purely look around. Feeling the energy of mood of the landscape, the damp soft grass and gentle breeze lofting through the spindly branches. I love to see the fractals in nature, reoccurring patterns, irregular but the same no matter the scale. I see how a tree mimics lungs, veins, and the rules of geometry that govern nature. It is these fractals that I am drawing and painting, patterns that emerge from the surface as I draw into it. Unveiling the truth, marks made before me, trusting in my hand that it knows what I am seeing. There were several paintings that were already in progress that I planned to exhibition, along with a large series of drawings in pencil, pen, pastel, colouring pencils and crayons. This abstracted tree became a motif which appeared in many of the works, I ran with this and played with its variations, pushing and pulling it to exaggerate it.  This repetition became a teacher, it was as if I was sculpting this feeling of how it is to be surrounded by trees. Stripping away the difference and coming to relalise that we share the same soil, we rely on each other. 

The install day was delightfully stressful, the excitement and anticipation of deciding how to curate the show, which pieces to hang and where. My friends Milli, Octavia and I had all shared a studio in our third year of our undergraduate so were very comfortable in working together as artists. Our work was able to bounce off each other, being completely different but still enhancing each other. We had all created our own little worlds, dynamic abstract forests, all painted and drawn as we see them. Milli had investigated her local ancient forest being Epping Forest- and Octavia has studied Witsman Woods in Devon local to her. The opening was incredibly fun, with so many friends and family, other artists and strangers joining together to appreciate art. As our first own show it felt such an achievement. It had been less than a year since graduation and we were already curating our own show! I always find funny the contrast between painting in solitude for months at a time in the studio, pining over your work and losing yourself to your practice. Then suddenly being surrounded by people, with goggling eyes enjoying or even scrutinising your work. It is a moment of vulnerability, but also giving. I try to remember it a gift, to be able to express the world visually like this. Creation is sacred and should be respected. I almost have to let go of the idea that I made the works. Seeing them just as they are, to be experienced and not having too much to do with them after. As to begin to explain how or why things are made is not as easy to answer.