fig.2: Manchester: Carbon City Zero
This is not so much a blog as a shameless plug. I composed todays post whilst walking through the rain to a cancelled GP appointment, which tends to result in a stream of consciousness - a consolidation of my relationship with the world through hypothetical fencing if you like.
I’ve spent the last week finally getting my web shop up to date (usb click back to the main menu ;)), and setting one up on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/PickArtShop?ref=seller-platform-mcnav. This has meant setting up links with Klein Imaging in Manchester to ensure the best quality archival giclee prints, so that the colour is perfect, and the images will last over time; and curating some of my recent images.
fig.3: Newcastle Journey
Collating my work like this has made me reflect how my practice has come to settle around the theme of cartography or mapping - whether of space and place, or of ideas.
I see this in the exploration and imagination of urban spaces, such as my recent work on Carbon City Zero, alongside Dr Sam Illingworth and Dr Paul Wake and the charity Possible working towards a zero carbon economy (who get 10% of any sales of these images). Two of the three available images “Edinburgh” and “Manchester” are shown here [fig.1 & 2] - “Bristol” is also ready to ship.
Over the next month the rest of the images: Cardiff, Sheffield, Brighton, Calderdale, Oldham and Machynlleth will be uploaded to the shops (so keep your eyes peeled, or let me know if you’d like to be told). These are the cities and regions that supported the Carbon City Zero project, to encourage debate and action to reduce carbon emissions on a local level.
fig.4: Brighton Culture
This ‘cartography’ is also present in the imagination of spaces as sequential narratives and cultural explosion, and through how colour can re-think and reflect the places as I see them, as in my illustrations of Newcastle and Brighton [fig.3 & 4].
Similarly my understanding and research into the biological and psychological landscape of type 1 diabetes in my Graphic Medicine work Diabetes: Year One [fig.5] is also a form of mapping, establishing and interrogating the relationships between the medical facts of my body and the reality of my everyday life.
fig.5: Diabetes: Year One
Individually these images and works chart out a place or space as I understand it, but taken together they begin to form a wider map of experiences - often based around a combination of walking the space, but also how spaces and places become defined through the collation of momentary experiences, and through how place is reflected (and projected) online.
Anyway - the shops are up, the images ready, and the compass is set, so from here the navigation begins.