The 4 large collages were inspired by my childhood memories of holidays spent with my parent’s family around Aberdare in the Brecon Beacons in South Wales. My primary resource has been the family photographs which I have represented in the collaged figures on A2 paper. I have used these as a base layer and added digital black and white photographs from the same primary resource. Other layers representing the landscape of the area, the coal mining and the geology have been applied on top using charcoal, ink and acrylic to represent rocks and landscape. The works are as much a celebration of my family and the human experience as a strong and reassuring link for me to my roots and to the question of who I am.

The five acrylic works on board are representations from photographs and maps of the landscape and geology of some of my favourite places to walk in South Wales, the South Downs and the Isle of Wight. The works were inspired by my love of walking and my lifelong interest in geography and geology. The term psychogeography is useful to describe that experience of walking and observing the things we see around us and its influence on our emotions. I like to layer the work to reflect the different aspects of the landscape and our relationship with the land. I like to apply a base layer of layered and scrubbed acrylic to depict the geology and the landscape. I apply further layers on some sections of the work from maps using charcoal.

My interest in land artists such as Richard Long, Chris Dury, Sean Sully, Ian McKeever and Hamish Fulton have influenced the direction of my practice. I am equally influenced by the psychogeographical writers Esther Kinski, Iain Sinclair and Horatio Clare.