Meditation on belonging and loss

This work is made of sixteen individual plates printed on one sheet of paper. It draws upon fragments of images made progressively over years using pinhole cameras, astronomical cameras and photogravure. The sixteen images have been collected together to represent my relationship with the earth, the sky, my children and my parents.

The grid starts top-left with a mushroom cloud photographed by my father in the south Pacific in the 1950s and ends bottom-right with my parents seen through my first pair of spectacles needed as my own eyesight begins to deteriorate as I age. Between these two markers are seen moments of longing, belonging and loss ranging from times of joy and oneness with the physical world to the melancholy knowing that all this is ultimately transient and destined to become the stardust seen in the plate of the Ghost of Cassiopeia nebula.

The precise sequence of the plates, printed purposefully in a grid of etchings after lengthy consideration of their content and meaning, attempts to convey a sense of right balance and self-reflection. The regular square has a wholeness and mathematical rhythm evoking the inexorable flow of life and the piecing together of time elapsed.

Medium: Polymer photogravure
Paper: Hahnemuhle White Etching 300g
Date: 2025
Image size: 30cm x 28.5cm / 12in x 11.25in
Size unframed: 37cm x 35cm / 14.5in x 13.75in
Price unframed: Not currently for sale
Edition size: 8