A current exhibition in the corridors of the Royal United Hospital in Bath holds a special significance for me. In the Summer of 2024, I was unfortunate enough to break my wrist and was walking through this corridor to do my X-ray scans a number of times. Seeing my work displayed near the 'radiology department' sign felt particularly rewarding, as it connected my art to a place I had experienced firsthand during a difficult time.
One of the pieces I exhibit is called 'Protecting the Sacred.' It is about dancing with the light, protecting the treasure of health and cherishing the gift of life. This artwork is framed in a vintage silver frame that I painted myself, replacing a reproduction of 'The Horse Fair' by A.J. Munnings. I chose to keep the frame to draw attention to the need for a shift from a growth-driven mindset to a more inward-focused one, where we can truly experience the essence of life by arriving at a more vulnerable place within ourselves. When you visit someone in hospital, or see people being pushed through unable to walk themselves, this is what you suddenly feel.
The second piece, 'The wave', delves into the symbolic energy contained in a wave, the neutral and everpresent or destructive power of the storm; it has rhythm, change, control and movement in it, perceivable or not. It reflects the ebb and flow of human existence, reminding us about the forces created by nature as well as humans, interconnectedness and also duality of all things.
Finally, the third piece, 'The Sea,' was picked for the colours. This image came from a film I developed and scanned, which was shot in the 1980s in Hastings by an unknown photographer. A friend discovered it at a camera fair and gave it to me to experiment with. As I examined it, I found it to depict a family's holiday by the sea. With time, the chemistry has changed, of course, and the 'sea' that can be seen in the image is not a photograph of the English Channel, but the colour bleeds that have occurred during processing.