Life and Death in the city: how a hidden landscape informs my artwork

My artwork 'Origin' 2024 in the ancient woodland in north Leeds

There is a place. A forgotten, hidden and ancient place nestled between Victorian terraces, a busy main road and a sprawling 1930s suburban housing estate. If you look closely you can see the signs of the people that came before. Long before the dog walkers. Long before the people taking a short cut to Big Tesco. Long before it became the place (in covid lockdown) where my daughter learned to walk and explore. And yet here she walked in other one-year old’s footsteps. A walk stretching back millennia. But all that visibly remains are the earth works of their dwellings. It’s not agreed whether the remains are Bronze Age or Iron Age, but to me they are ageless. Timeless. They are still with us in the trees, in the annual show of bluebells, in the foxes, in the squirrels, the acorns and, yes, even in the parakeets. In the universe’s constant cycle of life, death and rebirth. The cycle that works it’s way through my art, never resting, always changing. Re-forming. Breaking down. Emerging.

It really is beautiful, this constant cycle of creativity.