some sketchbook studies in ink pen... first it was water and now it is wood; this could be the start of something quite elemental...i have been given permission to visit some private woodlands to do some sketching over the next few months, but the last few days have been taken up by four days at the latitude festival (a few of these drawings were done on the henham estate)...inspired by reading bachelard, i am reminded of rembrandt's landscape etchings, anselm kiefer's dark forests, gustav klimt's birch trees, jacob van ruisdael's woodland landscapes... it is not so much recording locations or the evidence of nature that i am currently interested in, more the psychology (and history) of contained spaces… a transition from the perceived expanses of a horizon to an absence of it - dark, enclosed, densely textured and layered, resonant and allegorical... it is refreshing to explore these environments without a camera, it seems very nostalgic (romantic, even) to draw in the landscape, but observing, thinking and drawing become one experience, the scene unfolds more slowly, akin to the concept of the moving focus as david hockney alluded to...the salthouse exhibition continues... salthouse 09 : salt of the earth, 2 july to 2 august 2009