Title
The river slides by unstoppable
‘It has already happened’
The mountains call out
all craggy and bones
Details
380 x 278mm
2025, Charcoal, soft pastel on paper
Process
This drawing is one of six exhibited in Poems for Independence at Braemar Gallery in 2025 as a series of visual 'poems for Indy' - a gentle way of personifying 'independence' and what it means to me.
The series shares a scaffold of line work that brings to mind sheet music or architectural working drawings, providing a recurring structure to experiment with text and gestural marks.
This particular work is about finding solace in the temporariness of things, as a way of processing the intensity of rumination and worry.
References
'It has already happened' is a kind of mantra or regulating phrase that I came across (sorry I can't recall where) about managing rumination and worry. It's a bit hard to explain, but it stuck with me.
Of course the river embodies continual change and determination, but I also see the mountain as a closely connected creature, about slow time and deep change.