My work is concerned with the connections between past and present, fact and fiction. The key focus in my practice is to pursue the role of the archive, the idea of boats and fictional narrative. I have recently been inspired by reading my father's British Merchant Navy journals, which he kept as an apprentice during the mid-1950s. I found the Journals an inspiration because of the way they captured the thoughts, experiences and aspirations of a teenager growing up fast, whilst battling the elements at sea. This provoked a desire in me to recover the vivacity of the young sailor and investigate the notions of the seaman as an adventurer, and disciplined member of a tight community.
The archive as a document has acted to counterpoint fact and fiction. I am not nostalgically referencing the journals but am celebrating youth, adventure and the idea of romanticism. These new interpretations have a contemporary context, producing new scenes and spaces. The ocean is a space in a state of constant flux. This generates ideas in my work of the temporary, fragile and the organic. By exploring the use of the factual and the archival in unison, these elements make it possible for me to engross myself in a narrative. |
