Pushing the work forward, I have taken on board the very positive feedback from my Peers and will try and make my videos longer. In addition, try to achieve the most successful photographs by making sure both the reflection of the clouds and the stillness of the water are captured in the same shot. This is very weather dependant and may or may not be a hundred percent successful.

I have used a large piece of unbleached cotton, exploring the relationship with colour between blue tones in Below and earthy hues in Above.

The process is the same as previously, the difference being the cloth is larger, giving the piece more bodily presence, it feels less like an object and more like a fragment of the landscape or shoreline.

There is a definite dividing line which becomes the liminal space between Above and Below, before Below gradually invades Above. Above can’t take the weight of Below and the liminal space becomes part of both.

I started to stitch and attach the natural debris, shells, wood and leaves and then added the litter, washed plastic bottle, ring pulls, tin lids, bubble wrap, netting and some rusty metal hooks. I was extremely mindful of what I was using, making sure everything was clean and attached very securely so as not to litter when I submerged the fabric into the water.

The debris introduces a tension between the natural and the discarded as these materials are physically embedded, carrying evidence of human impact rather than a depiction.

The cloth before submerging. Approximately 2m x 1m.

By partially submerging the fabric the distinctions between the artwork and the environment collapse. The reflection in the water is an important part of the composition, the clouded reflecting Above in Below, with a slight obscurity which creates a liminal uncertainty, does the viewer see the sky or the water? Or both Above and Below?

The surface tension of the water creates a temporary image that cannot exist in the same way twice, adding to the impermanence, ecological fragility and flux.

Is there a reversal happening? Above, the skies reflection is visually located on the surface, Below, the submerged fabric in the water becomes partially obscured so the viewer experiences perception itself as layered and unreadable.

By photographing the work through the reflective plane of the water, the work destabilises the distinction between object, image and environment. Reflections of the clouds and sky occupy the same visual field, creating a shifting perceptual space in which Above and Below continuously collapse into each other.

The waters surface operates as both a mirror and a membrane, a liminal site through which visibility is fragmented, mediated and transformed.

Reflection

When the Above and Below fabric was submerged the distinction between sky and water dissolved into a single reflective plane. The clouds drifted across the surface of the water appearing both suspended and held within the depths below.

In this moment in time, the fabric occupied a liminal space, a threshold where bounderies become uncertain and perception is shifted.

The water transforms the work in both a subtle and a profound way, the once vibrant blue hues and earthy yellow tones have softened and faded, surrendering their colours to the environment and carrying the traces of immersion and time. Their muted presence speaking of transiencene weathering and the quiet influence of natural forces.

As the fabric moved beneath the reflective sky it became the mediator between Above and Below, the surface and the depth. Where the clouds mirror in the water, it creates an illusion of infinite space, floating between two atmospheres, neither fully submerged nor entirely separate from its surroundings. Existing within a fleeting interval where the the earth, sky and water converge.

The debris stayed securely in place throughout the process, functioning as the markers of connection, materials carried, collected and contained within the works evolving narrative. The echo of the organic matter in the found objects placing themselves at the waters edge, existing in a transitional zone between the two environments, Above and Below.

The outcome of the submersion not only changed the object but illustrated a document of passage, the faded pigments, the reflective clouds and the suspended presence of fabric within the water, revealing a piece shaped through contact and transformation.

In the meeting of sky and water, the work becomes a mediation on impermanence, inviting the viewers contemplation of the spaces that exist between certainty and ambiguity, between what is Above and what lies Below.