Diviner 1990
Private Collection Netherlands.
I enjoyed travel and I particularly enjoyed working in new places. Consequently, there are several works from 1990 that reference both internalized and physical journeys.
Diviner was included in the Galerie Ra, Reliefs exhibition in Amsterdam in late 1990. Based loosely around a 1600’s astrological map of the heavens, it’s just possible to discern allusions to Libra and other cosmic symbols. Technically the work's also noteworthy, as it’s the first time I inlayed shapes into the surface, an approach that would feature very heavily in the lace works of the 90’s. It’s a star chart; the circle floats in a heavenly collage of bird imagery and the same fragments of paisley fabric, that appeared for the first time in Mumbles. For the Train spotters amongst us the Bird Man in Diviner appears in You are Here several years later, floating down a river of music. Symbolically he represents me in both pieces.
Before the Ra exhibition had finished, I moved eastwards to Japan for 6 months, I’d been appointed Distinguished Visiting Fellow by the British Council, which meant I was due to be there over Christmas and into the New Year. I had a tiny house and a studio at the Kyoto City University of the Arts; the work made during this residency was shown over Christmas 1990 at Gallery Gallery in Kyoto. Part of my reason for being back in Japan was to research Artists for a forthcoming exhibition of Japanese Fibreworks I was about to curate through Goldsmiths College where I still worked. I wanted to do something in return for the artists who I’d previously met and the resultant exhibition Restless Shadows was the first time this work had been seen in the UK, it toured 9 venues from 1991-92. Diviner was used as the invitation card for the Gallery Gallery exhibition, Chasing Shadows it had therefore represented me in two quite distinctive cultures in a comparatively short time frame.
