Scars on the landscape. The footprints frozen in time waiting to be thawed. The once mud now solid earth. The traces of people crunching their way over the frozen grass. It feels like everything is standing still, frozen in time.
The marks within the landscape whether big or small, transient or everlasting, interest me and inform my artistic practice - the frozen winter landscape brings more opportunity for these marks to be regarded and seen. The ploughed field on the right; its linear scars left over from the autumn and the frozen path on the left with its more random nature collecting layers of marks, as the mud cycles through freeze and thaw.
I love those layers... the overlaying of people's journeys as they take a walk. The overlapping and rubbing out of the marks that have gone before. The old man and his dog impress their mark upon the young couple trying to dodge the mud, the child in his wellies squelches over the deer imprints. Even though these journeys are taken at different times (of the day, month and year) the frozen and defrosting cyclic nature of the ground at this time allows us to see it more clearly.
These marks are also perfect metaphor for how we impress our imprint on people throughout life and ourselves are impressed - sometimes these marks are rubbed away with time passing, just as the mud defrosts and re-freezes, giving the opportune upcoming marks to wipe away a trace of the ones gone before.
I love the depth of these layers and I'm left wondering where the people were walking to and from, whether they know each other, or whether they know that their paths have crossed.
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