This creature was made for a local outdoor art exhibition in place over the summer. I covered the frame made out of chicken netting with birch and fir twigs from already felled trees. Eyes are pieces of glass from bowls found at a charity shop. It was a fun, hands-on project!
Although this has been numbered as no two in the Flow series it has a number of predecessors. (Note to self, get a grip on documentation.) I experimented with painting gesso on 300 gram watercolour paper and continued with watercolour and coloured pencils. It has been a fight to reconcile the raised brush strokes of the gesso with the layers of watercolour but I decided yesterday that the struggle must stop here. The result is ambiguous, is it something growing, flowing or just a snapshot of light in a (colourful) glade? Or the remains of a structure?
Unless I suddenly see another possibility of portrayal I am now releasing it from my control.
Came across this watercolour/drawing when looking through works that I have at home in Sweden. Although it is part of a large group of ‘fur’-like drawings I like it because its landscape qualities, combined with hints of human/animal bodies, sets it apart from other works. The pools of ‘water’, I think, are quite delicate and seeps into the fur which is undulating, maybe following an underlying mountain range.
Flow has been selected to the Open Exhibition at the Ferens Art Gallery at Hull and will be shown from Saturday 15 February to Sunday 26 April 2020.
Technique similar to Dance On that was exhibited in Edinburgh but with watercolour instead of block printing colour as the starting point.
Anette Wahlgren 