In this exhibition I seek to understand palimpsest in a poetical sense, where memories are the layers placed on top of each other.  I am exploring the theme of loss.  I layered intrusive marker events into the layers of memory that shape the surface of my life.  The journey through different layers built up, by compulsive washing, staining, sewing and mark making are symbolic of the memories of moving on-it becomes the landscape of my life, a search without end for a landscape which I am a part of.

 

The juxtaposing of human made structures with organic forms of the landscape, the tangible with the intangible, illusion with reality, resonate with me.  I am pre-occupied with structures made by human hands that signify entrances, gateways or boundaries without consciously seeking to create visual metaphors for specific situations.  The palimpsest mixed media works started as a series of drawings about a ‘search for a sacred space’ which I then reworked for this exhibition.  

 

Initially the drawings dealt with a search for a ‘sacred space’ and were then reworked for this exhibition.  The image of a fence occurs frequently in the work and was evident when presented in the exhibition.  The way in which the wire hangers touched formed a fence resonating with the initial idea of a ‘sacred space.’  The Perspex parcels, bolted together, had become a sacred space, holding my memories.

Palimpsest in visual art refers to a surface where original

work has been rubbed off or worked over with other layers.

The multi-layered surface created by the artist is symbolic of the multi-layered nature of memory.