Greek trilogy                                                                         Diary excerpt from Skopelos,

I am windblown, and salty, my legs are tired from stepping up, up ,up.

I am in love with the beauty here, the raw simplicity,

all unnecessary blown away. I love to see the birds hover above the sea, floating in the thermals, twisting and playing.  To hear the sea lapping and crashing, to see the colour of intense aquamarine leak into the indigo currents. To see the little boats bobbing joyfully on the waves and the nonnas sitting on their steps in the sun in a tiny narrow pathway, Yassoo, yassoo.

I am here but for a moment and the ancient Greek culture and history flows melancholy in their veins, dark and rich. Stones are all around, earth layered.

Bells tinkle, pines whisper, olive trees ache, cry and grow again.

Skin deep brown, polished. Dark, syrupy eyes soft and open.

Skopelos, Northern Sporades island group, Greece

A dreamlike island, Skopelos is unspoilt and beckoning to be explored.

Surrounded by the Aegean sea, there is a sense of time, history and community, a connection to the earth, the sea, the island and her people.

Our two week printmaking workshop on Skopelos was led by Basil Hall and

David Frazer. I chose to focus on the magical medium of wood engraving with the talented David Frazer as my mentor, I had the opportunity to make several wood engravings and to learn from each one. We were encouraged to work from the context of the inspiring island, senses were filled, and new friendships formed. An enriching experience I will never forget.

The body of work in this exhibition includes techniques in printmaking, including monotypes, wood engravings, linocuts, and woodcut. To further my exploration there are also ceramics, which are form and vehicle for the image. The medium of monotype is a familiar one to me, the capturing of one moment, in its transience within the exploratory layering of ink. The medium of clay is an old friend I am revisiting, and as with printmaking, an element of surprise comes in the revealing of the finished print or pot, an unrecognisable element that becomes apparent in the act of fire or press.

Travel offers so many opportunities for inspiration, opening unchartered pathways to explore and investigate. Skopelos and our further travels within Greece to Delphi, Heraklion and Chania on the island of Crete, and Athens were a gift.

The performance, whether it be consciously created or of everyday life and unintentional is an ongoing theme in my art practice, be it remembered, from the unconscious, or the physical landscape in front of me.

Travelling to Greece was a pathway to observe the figurative from memory,from the ancient and new, felt and thought. One, two or many figures, the performance was of being the self, and of being and connection with others, within our landscape, our context. Be it the figure of a gypsy girl in Athens,boys performing traditional Greek dancing in Delphi, or the sensation of the body moving in the azure blue waters of Skopelos.

An attempt to hold the ephemeral.