In my practice I seek to explore what it is that gives a place its unique quality. We all seem to know when we are in a place, or when we leave a place but what is it that defines the boundaries? What is it that creates the feel of a place both in terms of our emotional reaction and the physical elements that exist within it, and how do these depend upon each other? How does a place differ from a location in space?
These concepts of Space and Place have long been the subject of enquiry of both philosophers and artists. The transition between the here and the there may mark the boundary between the known and the unknown, between the safe and the insecure and between the present and the future. Landscape art has traditionally sought to portray this by representing the view of the space surrounding a place, but maybe the principal boundary is that between the self and the outer, the point where person meets place and how that interaction is recorded by our senses, but also how that interaction changes both person and place. This change works on an individual level but also on a collective level. We live in a world that is constantly changing and that change is more and more being driven by the actions of the human race, by our personal actions and our collective actions.
I have been using an ontological approach to my work to investigate the physical elements that go to make up the fabric of a place, exploring the found landscapes that contain us or may be contained by us in the palm of a hand. Walking the landscape, allowing images and patterns to make themselves known to me has become a central part of my practice. There is a point of intersection between the geological timescale of the creation and movement of a single pebble and the brief moment of my being at the same point, and in this instant a work of art may be conceived. The creation of one object from another through the interpretation of marks using the medium of paint is the process by which part of my self becomes combined with part of the Place. That point of intersection also creates a location in Space defining the visible landscape that surrounds it. As Yi-Fu Tuan puts it:
“… if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place” (Tuan, 2011, p. 6)
Tuan, Y.-F., 2011. Space and place: the perspective of experience, 7. print. ed. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minn.