2012 - 2018 The Hazelford Project

The Hazelford Project

In January 2012 I began making work in response to the earthworks at Hazelford in Oxfordshire. Once a small hamlet situated on a mill stream surrounded by trees, it was finally deserted on the eve of the First World War in 1914. What remains today are a number of intriguing features including a couple of ivy clad stone walls of a house and a large brick lined pool used for dyeing cloth (the village had a history of textiles and papermaking). Working from this location brought me the opportunity to embrace a developing interest in the relationship between art and archaeology. Throughout the project I sought to combine these two disciplines while working with a combination of social and historical research, documentary evidence, an experimental approach to media and processes, and an inventive use of materials.

1/14

Part 1. The Lost Village 2012 - 2013

Paper Stack (2012)

Handmade nettle paper

Thistle Head (2012)

Thistle head, plaster of paris

Midden (2013)

Stencilled monoprint, wood, oil paint, broken plates & resin on
canvas 93 x 118 cm

Sheep's Wool Construction (2013)

Sheep's wool, nails, string, acrylic paint on wood 23 x 60 cm

Unidentified object I (2012-2013)

Wood, string, cloth, nails, hessian, acrylic paint, plaster of paris

Unidentified Object II (2012-2013)

Wood, string, cloth, nails, hessian, acrylic paint, plaster of paris

Unidentified Object III (2012-2013)

Wood, string, cloth, nails, hessian, acrylic paint, plaster of paris

Snail Shell Fragment (2013)

Mono print collage on paper 84 x 103 cm

Boundary 1 (2012)

Inkjet print & PVA glue on
paper 31 x 39 cm

Pit (2012)

Inkjet print & PVA on paper 31 x 39 cm

Hidden by Trees (2012)

Monoprint on layout paper 41.0 x 37.0 cm

"The Trees Hide The Past" (2012)

Scanned digital print overlaid with text on acetate 21 x 30cm

Untitled (2012)

Acrylic & PVA glue on canvas 63 x 106 cm

Settlement (2013)

Oil on canvas 93 x 93 cm

Earthworks (2012)

Oil on canvas 75 x 85 cm

Exhibition

In May 2013 I showed Part 1 as part of an Oxfordshire Artweeks open studio exhibition in collaboration with visual and performance artist Rhiannon Evans. The exhibition attracted a large number of visitors carrying a broad range of interests including: fine art, crafts, botany, archaeology, agriculture and an interest in local industrial history encompassing plush making, fulling, weaving, spinning and dyeing cloth and papermaking – all processes either once present or closely connected with the site. This exchange between the work and our visitors proved invaluable in terms of bringing us new and interesting information with which to further our creative ideas and take the project on into the future.

1/9

Part 2. Past Present 2013 - 2015

The following work grew out of The Lost Village encapsulating a long term interest in marks left behind in the landscape through the natural processes of weathering and erosion with the emergence of new concerns about the traces of human occupation.

Laundry (2013)

Hessian, plaster of paris, string

Shroud (2014)

Monoprint from plastic bags on paper

Djellaba (2014)

Monoprint from plastic bags on paper

Falling (2014)

Oil on canvas 92 x 92 cm

Cast (2014)

Oil on canvas 93 x 102 cm

Bound (2014)

Oil on canvas 65 x 75 cm

Part 3. The Inheritors 2015 -2016

This further continuation of the project took a wholly figurative turn as I found myself reflecting upon and imagining just what the quality of life would really have been like for the inhabitants of the lost village of Hazelford.

This phase of the project was initially inspired by my own drawings, made back in 2011, of the enigmatic figures by Mike Roles situated in the Broomhill Sculpture Garden in North Devon. These dark and brooding forms communicated something of the underlying struggle of the human condition of buried emotions rarely brought to the surface, of anger, pain, and hidden resentment remaining undisclosed.