2024
New suite of sculptures produced during one-month residency at Pedvale Art Park in Latvia, September 2024.
Apple tree rings (the law of love)
Forged carriage wheel, Dutch gold, old apple trees, each 110cm diameter.
I was always told, that old apple trees don't carry much frui ... In September 2024 I was confronted with the opposite reality: all over Kurzeme (Latvia) ancient apple orchards creaked and groaned under the weight of their fruit. Apple tree rings, a love poem.
"Love the bond that unites your plot of earth with the Earth, the bond that makes kin and stranger resemble each other." (Michel Serres The natural Contract, 1995)
Charcoal made from burned weeping willow (Latvia) linseed oil (harvested in Lithuania), paper, PVA, each drawing 190 x 90cm.
Stepping into mainland Europe and working temporarily in Latvia the layers of layers of occupations and ownerships are visible but etched into living memory.
Living in a house once owned by German-Baltic Barons, occupied by German and Red Army soldiers, used as Soviet Kolkhozes Building and now owned by a Latvian artist whose ancestors worked as serfs is deep diving into some form of truth amidst past and current turmoil.
The very soil the farmer in September 2024 tills in preparation for the 2025 harvest has been tilled under different flags, conditions and ownerships, but always in relation to the thousands of 'others' - the soil, the seeds, the birds and worms, the weather, the comets, the future of the future barley harvest and future food for family, friends and the world.
Hay, linen string, ribbons, steel poles, soap and grass.
Whilst visiting an exhibition of life and work in Kurzeme, at the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century I had flashbacks to visiting a similar exhibition in Ireland, Switzerland, Japan, Scotland and Anglesey.
In all these exhibitions, black and white photos show people working with their hands, wooden tools, heavy horses the land. Men, women, children.
Hay gathered with a handheld rake over two days would provide food for barely a day for a cow, perhaps two days for a horse, maybe a winter for a rabbit, and more than one lifetime for some insects. In the Dolomites, they distil hay into alcohol. I do not know how much hay I would need to harvest for such an enterprise.
Burned weeping willow, oak, steel, dried fungi and willow ash, overall height of each work including base 150cm.
Steel pole, orange paint and orange ribbons.
This is a piece for winter, when the trees have lost the apples and their leaves. It will come into its own, pointing into the grey sky and connecting into the snow covered soil. Food for the eyes, like the orange Rowan berries provide bird nourishment into the winter.
