In early 2022 I found wood in a skip behind my house. It’s very close to a river which runs through the area I live in. The pieces of wood had probably been paneling in someone’s apartment. Which is more than likely beside my house and the river. I decided to take of the lengths, chop them up, sand them and give them a new life. Or create new stories for them. What messages was the wood itself trying to tell me. Where had the wood grown originally? What memories were embedded within the fibers of the wood?
Because I work as an illustrator I am really interested in stories and visual narrative as a means of expression or altering the way we see something. What was once discarded wood could become mini paintings.
I wanted to incorporate water and birds into the wood scapes. I found the wood behind my house and beside the river. A heron lives there and I see it many times a day. There are many other birds that frequent this area such as crows, seagulls, ducks, migratory geese, wrens, blackbirds, blue tits and a sparrow hawk. Sometimes I can see swans or migratory geese flying over head. I am curious as to where the wood came from originally and if birds sat in its branches. Did migratory birds that over winter here fly from the branches of the trees that made this wood?
I wanted this series to feel romantic, drawing on old style paintings by painters such has Turner.