Three years ago I visited Berlin, the temperature was around minus 20 degrees C and there was a couple of feet of snow everywhere. I went to the Holocaust Memorial, thousands of black stelae in a grid across the landscape and the deep snow threw ethereal shadows between the columns. I took a lot of photos because I was immensely moved by the sight – and sound – it was so muffled because of the snow. It’s taken all this time to really get to grips with it, to find a way of expressing the imagery in some way, to know what to do with it.
I think I’ve found a way forward with it at last, developing the work through the manier noir reductive drawing technique over the past two days at the Creative Bubble artspace in Swansea. The original photos, five of them in this slideshow, are the basis of the work, but once I’ve roughly mapped them onto the prepared paper with chalk, they start to become something else, they get a life of their own. I don’t normally work like this, it’s a new direction for me but I’m enjoying cutting myself loose.
I really love this drawing Rosie – it has so many layers of complexity. I could just keep looking and finding new stories in it.
Thank you, Anna. I will be developing this new direction ☺
Yor work is amazing. It’s very impressive and moving.
Thank you so much x
Ethereal sadness. A beautiful collection of the shadows that a soul leaves behind.
Thank you. That’s a beautiful thing to say xxx