Hot Bed Press in Salford, is where my studio is and where I go to work as an artist, thanks to them and University of Salford Collections I have been selected as an artist to create work responding to the Coronavirus and the way it has and continues to change the way we live. Lots of people have lost work, with immediate loss of income myself included. The importance of this commission is to allow me to work as an artist, to respond ‘put pen to paper’.
The brief asks us to using our current style and ways of working to explore the situation we find ourselves in
Having lived for the best part of twenty years in a high rise block of flats I count myself very lucky to have just moved out before this pandemic started and now live in a house with a yard ( this was a huge adjustment for me and amazingly exciting for my little girl we have stairs!) It is really astonishing for me to observe nature in my yard in the same way I used view the world from above in my 10th floor window. Obviously viewing the world from above is unique and interesting perspective but living high rise accommodation with small children is difficult, it is trapping and I really feel for my old friends and neighbours at this time.
As always I start my investigation into drawing by looking around at environment, drawing, list writing and taking photos. Some of the moments, during lockdown isolation have been swinging from panic to mundanity, at times I can be found staring at the ground and because my yard was not brimming with nature, observing life in the back yard is more microscopic, then small interactions with insects become loaded with great significance.
So this is where it starts, staring at the ground, who knows where it will lead I’m grateful to be given the opportunity to think about it.
