We Only Print in Blood Red

glazed ceramic pieces installed on a tree

“We Only Print in Blood Red” was a site specific sculptural piece, installed on a tree in Lytham ,as part of Counterpart. The piece explores the complex and often destructive relationship we have with the natural environment. Counterpart involved 12 artists work installed throughout Lytham.

The piece is fired and glazed ceramic, involving thousands of clay finger prints, made by repetitively pressing clay between my fingers to create 12 individual pieces which will occupy the trees, visually and conceptually similar to fungi which often grows on decaying parts of trees or around wounds. The piece explores the relationship between healthy, attractive, symbiotic and unhealthy, invasive and destructive.

There is a dichotomy or ambivalence inherent in this work, reflective of a deep respect for our natural environment- we treasure and enjoy trees in parks and woodlands, in an explicitly symbiotic relationship – whilst also referencing the unavoidable, global truth of our innately devouring and destructive drive manifested in deforestation and its returning impact on us.