My work

Coast to Coast

I first became aware of the beauty of the ‘Ordnance Survey’ (OS) maps when I was planning to do the coast to coast walk in the North of England. The walk is 190 miles long and the route takes you from the Irish Sea to the North Sea, west to east from St. Bees in the Lake District to Robin Hood’s bay in North Yorkshire. I completed the walk in May 2007.

It was originated by Alfred Wainwright in the 1970’s, who’s aim it was to travel in as straight a line as possible across the island taking in some of the most breathtaking countryside Britain has to offer. He created a slice through England.

Maps give us a visual representation in symbolic form of the Earth’s surface from above so that we can put ourselves in context with the whole. We process the information and acknowledge the reality of the represented surface and our existence within it.

I have worked from the maps instinctively drawing on my emotional and physical experiences from the walk. The journey became a fusion between the landscape, the map and myself.

By minimising the technical information and leaving out roads and buildings, the paintings describe the landscape through the graphic and abstracted forms of the OS map symbolism.

Paintings based on © Ordnance Survey Maps 2008