Alison Craig
Participating in We Live With The Land
My work as a painter-printmaker derives from my experience of the natural environment, its’ history and its’ people. I am intrigued by the concept of “deep mapping” as formulated by William Least Heat Moon and by Clifford MacLucas, and the notion that the surface appearance of the land is just a tiny part of a dynamic process involving human interaction as well as geological change. Deep mapping involves different ways of seeing, from intimate observation to consideration of the massive and Sublime.
The physical process of drawing is important to me, and I use it to record my response to my surroundings rather than produce an accurate reproduction of what I see: walking; looking; thinking; drawing; mapping; tracing the landscape under my feet and sensing the past underneath the present.
The action of drawing is taken further, into paintings and prints where the final piece emerges from the process of layering and erasing colour and line. Found objects and text may be included discreetly, offering subliminal markers of location and of human interaction with the landscape.
I intend to use “Cyd-fyw â’r tir” as a framework to investigate the countryside around my home in rural North Wales - “fy milltir sgwar”. A lot of my recent work has focused on territory away from home: the Welsh Marches; the historic landscape of Bwlch y Ddeufaen in Gwynedd. This new project will provide a welcome opportunity to get back in touch with my immediate surroundings and also to work on a larger scale than has been possible during the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic.
I hope that “Cyd-fyw â’r tir” will allow me to continue and expand my investigations into our relationship with land and its’ history, and I look forward to the opportunity to exchange ideas and inspirations with the other artists and writers involved.
