Aerial landscape 5

Aerial landscape 5 (2013)

unframed price

cotton fibre, pigment dyes

H 28 x W 36 cm

Suggested framed dimensions:
H 48 x W 56 cm (min)

An aerial view of Sussex shows a landscape delineated by boundary and colour where land meets sea.
The yellow of the rapeseed fields and light greens and browns are divided by the precise man-made geometry of dark green hedges.
I used re-cycled dyed leather where I transferred the colour onto the wet cotton pulp in order to fuse it with the existing pigment dyes.
The result is a work imbued with a feeling of nostalgia, a look back at the past from a position of borrowed time.

Note on the technique:

The cotton fibre pulp works are built up using layers of dyed pulp in a wet-on-wet or wet-on-dry, hand mould and deckle process. There is no glue in the mixture as the 'paper' holds together through the natural interweaving of the fibres themselves.

The pulp is made predominantly from cotton linters which is repeatedly mashed with water before different natural or synthetic, fibre-reactive pigment dyes are added to create the basic palette. In some cases, organic material is mixed with or embedded in the pulps, with the possibility of larger elements being stripped away when wet or dry leaving a 3D graffito-style impression in the revealed layers. An important feature is the uneven edges (deckle edges) that the process produces.

The natural light plays a big part in the drying process which can take 3 to 4 weeks. Natural sunlight and the right temperature help the chemical reaction between pigment and fibre resulting in stronger, high-density colours.