DRIFTWOOD SKETCHES



Back in 2015 I began working on a series of driftwood sketches. Somewhere I’d read about ancient Polynesians using driftwood to plot out their seafaring adventures.

I’d been thinking deeply about the idea of climate migration, in particular the plight of Kiribati, a tiny archipelago in Micronesia; slowly vanishing under rising sea levels.

Could these basic wooden tools help me to rediscover an ancient visual language - a way to express a new landscape, one under pressure to adapt to a changing world and its natural forces?

As I held each piece of driftwood, I thought about its own journey; once connected to a living tree, now displaced - shaped by the turbulent seas, configured into rounded shapes and subtler hues.

With a speed and dexterity rarely afforded by pencil or paint, I used my hands to play, rotate and reassemble the pieces into a series of sketches. Instinctively, I added in new elements to create something dynamic - an arrangement that seemed to deepen, and come alive. When the combination of elements seemed to take on its own narrative, I paused to capture this series of photographs.

Later, the sketches were dismantled and the driftwood pieces handed out to visitors as part of an exhibition, their onward destination unknown. Some may have been kept or discarded or repurposed into something new. Perhaps some may have made it back to the sea … continuing their journeys, connected, disconnected … back to the moment in time where they came together to tell a shared story.

If you remember being given a piece of driftwood by me and still have it, please get in touch so the story can continue ...