Moving forward from my own personal environmental flooding experiences to outward more global expressions, using my artwork as a form of artivism, creative expression and ecological advocacy to provoke social change.

By combining found objects with the open water, I want to further explore the intersection between human waste and natural lifelines. Using the open water as a living entity, rather than just a resource, as it carries the chemical and physical history of the land as it flows through.

The water should be treated as a precious resource that links us as humans to our planet. The found objects are almost a protest against disposability and the world’s lack of focus on environmental collapse.

My love/hate relationship with water is still the very core of my practice, mixed with the dichotomies beauty/crisis, calm and fear.

I put up three pieces of artwork for a silent crit I host. The first two pieces together, titled Above and Below.

Above

Below

Above – The land holds traces of our out of sync seasons, a warm palette of paint with imprints of nature, which contrast with the fluidity of the sea. The density of texture feels heavy, pressed by the print of a world physically and grounded in contrast to earthy textures to comforting days of warmth.

Below – Cool coastal palette built in layers as I try to capture the shifting weight and transparency of the water, the push and pull of the tides. The roughness and bleakness of the surf and the depth of the water. I hope the layers create a sense of movement, mirroring the emotional duality that I feel towards the water, the beautiful immersive, hypnotic experience. The pull of something so vast and alive, the destructiveness, the power and the turbulent sheer force the water has and this fear it has over me.

The third piece was a trial at combining both the found objects, the open water and layering the physical water on top.

All three pieces were well received. Here are some of the notes I took.

Energy, textures, organic, earthy, a walk through nature, dreaming, movement both above and below, colour, a moment in time, drawn down, drawn up, hot, fiery, cold, destruction of the earth, rough, visual metaphor for my inner tension, battle of above and below, a directional, underwater fight, splashes of water, dark eerie shadows of what lies beneath.

These three pieces are the start of how I would like to move forward with the inclusion of trying to print on some fabric and possibly make some banners both horizontal and vertical.

My collaborative projects are ongoing. Myself and student Vicky are in discussion on another separate piece of work.