2020, 75x150cm, framed

‘Anbid', an Old English word meaning 'waiting, hope, expectation'.

As usual the length of time needed to produce the work leads to a web of meditation and additions to the meaning behind it. The title was chosen months before the project completed but I always intended this piece to be a bridge between my Disintegration Series and what comes next. At the start of the Covid lockdown in the UK I was struck by the public reclaiming their gardens and patios. Seeds sold out, compost was scarce. There was a beautiful moment of pause and deliberation, a refocusing on what lies around us. I saw a future paradise where we emerged from a wrecked world (of a much worse cataclysm) into rewilded public/private spaces and undertended gardens. Nooks for thinking and resting. Groves for the commons and commoners.

At the same time the snarling political discourses quietly left alone Brexit and its harkening back to the Good Old Days™ of some mis-imagined English Golden Age (which is why I started thinking about Anglo Saxon) in favour of some weird fatalistic new blitz spirit entirely of our own making. Austerity killing off tens of thousands of people under the anti-aegis of laissez-faire politics. Government could have done so much more to protect people but our electoral choices made sure that no matter how loudly we banged our pots and pans it would always fail to protect us.

I originally chose this lichen covered branch as the subject because lichen is a symbiosis. It is a bellwether and obvious indicator of environmental conditions. They are ancient and fascinating. In the first place I wanted to make a piece of art that spoke of what we need to achieve with the planet. What I got was something that also describes my anger at how we are letting things slip all around us.

The framing of this work requires wooden brackets on the wall to hang it securely. These will be supplied with the work, for you to drill into the wall as necessary.