| Rock climbers dust their hands with chalk as a means of staying in contact with the rock; and traces of chalk on the rock record their passage. For this reason the choice of pastel (a form of chalk) as the medium through which to explore the nature of rock seems particularly appropriate.
Chalk on Rock (the title I gave to my first major project) also suggests some kind of commentary on rock. The majority of my pictures are executed in pastel (although recently I have begun to work also in watercolour), and many have to do in some way with my growing and changing acquaintance with rock. A recurring aim has been to convey a sense of the tactile quality of the surface of rock, exploring that quality through another sense — vision. This relates to an emerging interest in the varied tactile qualities of the surfaces on which it is possible to draw, the disciplines which these impose, and the effects which emerge from the interplay of colour and surface. |
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