‘The Wild Sea, North Cornwall

For the last six years I have been working on a specific stretch of the Atlantic Coast called Tregardock Cliffs, owned by the National Trust. The place is both wild and beautiful and filled with a raw, elemental energy. Looking out from the cliffs, at times the land and sea merge into one mass that feels as though it might literally swallow you up. On the beach, huge monolithic struts of rock create an alien, almost primordial landscape. Living and working on the coast through the Winter, and into Spring, has allowed me both a high degree of experimentation, as well as immersal in my subject. From the outset I have felt an intuitive desire to kneel in the mud, to feel the Earth beneath me, and to make work.

Drawing at Tregardock over the winter months demands quite a vigorous approach. The descent and ascent with art materials in hand can be a challenge, particularly in such an exposed environment. As Daphne du Maurier says in her book ‘Vanishing Cornwall’, “the difference in temperature, the vagary of weather, varies from mile to mile with a kind of lunatic perversity”. Over time though I have learnt to embrace this precarious process of working. Control has to be relinquished and a certain amount of improvisation is necessitated.

Applying medium with my hands, and carving up shapes with strong and visceral mark making feels hugely satisfying in an environment like Tregardock. Working outside has meant that many of my studies start as simply marks on a page, impressions or moments captured. I have tried to record these moments when I see them. Sometimes I don’t make it down to the beach, but find myself entangled in the hedgerows, studying the plants, or trying to capture the colour of the sky. These moments recorded, no matter how roughly, nearly always become something, and over time they form the marrow of my work.

There is something very humbling about being alone in a vast landscape, and in truth everything in me can pull away from Tregardock when the weather is stormy, such is the intensity of the place. Still though I know I must go with my instincts from the start, to feel the Earth beneath me and the elements around me. As I emerge out the other side this last few years, Tregardock has become a wonderful place of solace, despite its fierceness at times.

Link to full Tregardock film by Paul Lewis in 2021 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7fRlxB0ivM