Dark. Strange. Otherworldly.

There was a time, not that long ago, when I would never have thought that I would be able to visit the German Democratic Republic. And then “The Wall” came down and here I was, just a few weeks ago, in what used to be East Germany, in the silent and dark countryside surrounded by forests and lakes, where wolves are known to prowl. And after a few days these strange figures began to emerge. I had decided that I would not draw from life, but suspend thoughts and direction and let something else guide my hand, with the twig dipped in ink moving over the Khadi paper. The figures that came through seem a bit Gothic to me, dark, strange, otherworldly. I remember the fear of Grimm’s Fairy Tales from my childhood; my love of Expressionist art and film; my scary nightly walks across the deserted courtyard to the toilets, and I wonder if these influences were added into the mix as I drew.

I went to the artist residency with four other Welsh women artists, Chris Bird-Jones, Sarah Hopkins , Rhiannon Rees  and Rhian Haf. We have been supported by Wales Arts International. We are all members of AGOR Abertawe, set up to facilitate creative activity between women artists in Swansea / South Wales, and the Brandenburg area. We were mostly at the Atelierhof Werenzhaim, an artist community founded in 1996 by artists from East and West Germany in a 14th century former feudal tavern estate.