Mangrove Series V - Beyond the Light, 2020
Charcoal on Belgium Linen
90 x 90cm
 
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The intention of creating a series of mangroves drawings is to create awareness about the changes to our river banks and coastlines as I look to engage the viewer about the human impact on these fragile spaces.  
 
Mangroves… hold their memories like badges, witnesses to the reshaping of the landscape, struggling for survival.  
 
In this drawing I have shifted from the tradition of drawing on paper to linen, creating not just a dialogue about the mangroves themselves but of the loss of mangrove forests globally. The use of unbleached linen, a fabric that has been around for centuries, is chosen to begin a discourse about the role of manufacturing in polluting our waterways. A pollution that has historically destroyed vast areas of mangroves but continue to endanger what remains of the mangroves forests that are vital to the health of our rivers and oceans. 
 
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Mangroves… hold their memories like badges, witnesses to the memories of the landscape.  
 
Unwilling companions to our impositions of change. Like sentinels on the sand, you feel like an interloper into a world beyond your mind, one where they move quietly and gracefully as though dancing upon the sands.   
 
Many have fallen to human settlement but in the darker places under the canopy they spread. You can see their true selves, with their walking legs. 
 
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