In 2023, I was invited to exhibit at Moray Art Centre, which led to an exploration of Findhorn Beach. This has become an ongoing research project focused on the organic and synthetic structures encountered, whilst engaging with notions of heritage, temporality, environmental precarity and the fixity of place. Walking has been a cornerstone of my practice over the last decade and it was through initial wanders along the coast that this evolving body of work first emerged. My projects often begin with a gathering of fragments to piece together narratives and illustrate subjective reading of a place. And so, collected images and objects from Findhorn Beach became a library from which I constructed layered assemblages combining screen printing, drawing, CNC-cut timber and accumulated artefacts. Sand from the beach became a visual motif and apparent substrate, whilst found charcoal has been used to make ink, textural rubbings on site and depictions of root networks drawn directly on admiralty charts. Informed by architectural models and dioramas, I consider the resulting works as spatial illustrations that explore the embodied experience of the site, whilst playing with notions of landscape as a flat, permanent surface or backdrop for anthropocentric endeavour. Relief compositions are layered over printed imagery of decaying concrete, root systems and topographic details. Found fragments are framed, as if relics on shelves and held in surreal tension by ambiguous supports, echoing scenes from the coastline. Here, I present a selection of these works, emphasizing key ideas alongside photography taken during the initial research visit. An interplay between record and representation offering insight into my process and opportunity to further consider the narratives explored.
David Lemm (Sun,) studied this question.