..After the Rain…

 A village

 in the heart of England, 1961.

(..a kestrel,  hovering high in the summer sky

 is reflected in a round droplet of water as it sits on the heavily textured

surface of a cabbage leaf…

..a child’s hand  tilts the leaf & the droplet begins to roll up & down the walls of its playing field…)

*

The Gardenworld has its origins in a real garden,the one that housed my Studio in the late 1970’s.

This had been my childhood play area & it was to where I eventually returned after my school years.

Since those first tentative enquiries into my surroundings, my work has continued to examine the

relationships I first  discovered there,illustrated by the characters I would glimpse out of the corner of my eye

as I meandered down the garden path…

*

..The New World…

By the Spring of 1982 the Gardenworld had established itself & had been left to its own devices. In 1992,

 with the exhibition  ‘.. An Hour Beyond Midnight…’ , came the first public appearance about the conflict

that had arisen when an unseen element sought to take over the quietness that existed there.

Improbable Trees form a barrier around the perimiter of the space & various denizens (Mannekins & others)

keep a watchful eye over proceedings…

The Enemy proposes a game of Chess  -hoping to keep the Mannekins occupied so that it can slip into the Garden

without being noticed. Between the opening of the envelope which contains the Opponent’s sealed move & the

acknowledgement of that gambit, there is time & space enough to linger…

*