Re-View, Group Exhibition, Back to Back Galleries
Newcastle, Hunter Valley, Australia,
27 March-12 April 2026
I am pleased to be involved in this year’s exhibition Re-View in Newcastle, Hunter Valley Australia, in which artists of a range of media are invited to choose a book or poem that is being featured in Newcastle Writers Festival and to create a piece of work that is inspired by the writing. I chose 'Always Home, Always Homesick' by Hannah Kent.
Hannah Kent’s biography relates to her stay at the age of 18 as an exchange student from Australia, in Iceland. Here she fell in love with the landscape, the customs, the language, the people and in her own words “I feel a visceral attachment to this place. My bones have been knitted with this place.” She especially felt drawn in an almost psychic way to the story of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last person to be executed in Iceland and which inspired her novel 'Burial Rites'.
Her book is about spirituality, deep connection to place as well as not accepting given stories, but digging deeper to allow your heart to open and be true to yourself.
I was drawn to the title of the book as I am recently spending a year in Australia, with a view to emigrating here. Whereas Hannah Kent first lived in Iceland was at the age of 18 with her life ahead of her I am starting a new life in a new country at the age of 72 but despite this I could really relate to her struggles and joys in a strange country and trying to find her place there.
There are times when I feel 'euphoric sublimation to beauty' and that particularly in a special place on the ancient rocks and ocean of the Gadigal country. Here my body feels as if I am no longer separate from the land, from the ocean or from its history but that I am a very tiny, but integral part of the past, present and future of the earth that we inhabit, seeing through what is in front of me, revealing layers of time.
Artist Residency at Fen Ditton Gallery, Cambridge,
1 to 15 August 2024
My house on Ditton Lane has been my home since 1983, but it is only since 2020 during the first lockdown, that I began to walk regularly with my husband, Nick, to Baits Bite Lock. When the new bridge was built we explored the long circular walk from Fen Ditton and it was at this point that the actual village of Fen Ditton felt more like home as we spent more quality time here.
We began to increasingly love and appreciate our environment as we experienced it throughout the seasons. Finding an allotment site in the village also meant meeting and making connections with more local people. Continuing to make these friendships in the village has been a crucial part of my life as I weave a new web of connection to stay grounded throughout some difficult times.
My daughter Lisa emigrated to Australia in 2008, and my husband and soulmate of 37 years, Nick, died in November 2022. As a response to these and other major changes in my life, I will be developing my thoughts and ideas about what, where or who is “home” when the person or people that you love and share your home with, are no longer there, and the importance of connection and community.
I will be working at the gallery and starting a new piece of work that explores what home is and has been, with and without my family around me, using found images, family album photos, diaries, and memorabilia. I will be using a range of digital and analogue techniques that include pin hole photography, and cyanotypes.
Alongside this new work, I will also be showing work that relates to the idea of home, some autobiographical and personal, and some from residencies I have worked on during my career as an artist.