Lindy Sale

The drawings on plaster cubes are prompted by old, fold-up paper road maps. The blocks represent the physical land in its essence, the plaster medium being the earth or rock. Scratching and painting on to the plaster base suggests rock art or graffiti. Both of these practices seem to have been driven by the human impulse for mark making. While rock painters may have been inspired by the desire to possess the animals they drew, similarly the land represented by these plaster blocks is a highly valued commodity. The collections of blocks suggest the way land is broken up into tradeable parcels and divided by fences and roads, denying the interconnection necessary in a healthy ecology.

 While enjoying and celebrating nature, the paintings are driven by a concern for its fragility in the context of climate and competition for water and space. These ideas are followed in ways that are suggested rather than stated. I search for interesting botanical specimens and collect, arrange and illuminate them and then use a magnifying glass and close-up photography to study them in detail before drawing and painting. While observing these worlds-within-worlds yields much of interest, I am also drawn to the way the imagination can be prompted to depict the possibilities for almost, but not quite, life-like forms.  

• Craft and object
• 2 D (painting/printmaking/drawing/illustration/cartoons)