Description
Much of my work develops as like a series of slightly misheard whispers. The title of a picture or a written description of an event will create an image in my head that often is very different to the one that would have developed from a visual input. It becomes a dynamic process of abstraction and change through iteration. A physical event becomes a written or spoken distillation, which is then reinvented as a new object. Very often, when I track back, I am surprised at how far removed from the original source, my creative process has taken me.
NASA published a picture of the surface of Mars taken by the roving robot ‘Opportunity’. The idea of there being a shadow of ‘opportunity’ was more powerful for me than the actual image; the evidence of a presence, a spontaneous happening, without a direct recording.
In the Spring of 2009, I had the opportunity to work with an enameller who has a very different, organic approach to her creative practice and I made this piece with her help. I wanted the spontaneity to be apparent, but also make reference back to deep space and the NASA image that had started this little creative journey.
