Rainmaker

Art & Animism

My intention for my time here was to go more deeply into relationship with place, land and more than human. Working with Hanien Conradie and Colin Campbel; Artist and Animist from South Africa wasan inspiration and a privilege.

My time felt like a courtship, a tryst between myself as human being and the many more than human beings, I was hoping to learn how to listen and respond more deeply in my prcatce as an artist.

The images arose intuitively as part of simple ritual, paying attention and as a result of the coming together of myself with the land at a specifc moment of time.

I felt drawn towards portals and liminal spaces. Reminiscent of ‘Annwfn’: the Welsh word meaning ‘very deep’ I wondered was there a similar word to ‘Annwfn’, in the now extinct Cumbric language ? What words would have been spoken on this land? As someone who hails from the Old North of England and is now learning Welsh , I am curious about this lost language which my ancestors would have spoken. Creating artwork in response to my relationship with the land feels like reaching for a new embodied language beyond the verbal.

As an artist working with pigment, using local iron ore pigment to make marks gave me a sense of being grounded in this place. This feeling of being earthed was coupled with an ephemeral appreciation of the holy or sacred which is beyond our usual experience and beyond the limitations of words.