Weather Eye (2024) has been shortlisted for the John Ruskin Prize 2025.
The work will join other shortlisted works as part of the prize exhibition 'From the Eye to the Hand' at Trinity Buoy Wharf 16 January - 2 February 2025.
More information on the John Ruskin Prize 2025 here>>
Weather Eye is a pair negative space drawings of glacial sites in Switzerland, made with glacial 'flour' on optician’s lenses. They are part of the Ice Watch series of work using rock flour on glass lenses. This glacial flour is the remains of rock ground down by glacial action, deposited by retreating glaciers. Light passes though the dusty residue, casting a shadow of glaciated landscapes as seen while artist in residence at Musée d’ Art du Valais in 2023 - views now already a thing of the past due to climate change. The shadowy absent-presence of the images recalls not only the absence of the ice retreated from these areas, but also the impossible ideal of the sublime imaginary that these mountain vistas evoke – somewhere other, out of reach, elsewhere. However, unlike the dreamy nineteenth century romanticism that such views might evoke, here lies a quiet critique, a suggestion of the need to look and pay attention to the world in change, using our hands to draw and our eyes to look. The handle of the optician’s lens might invite the viewer to bring the glass to their own eye or explore how the shadowy images are changed by their own small movements.
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