Studio.  Gardenstown, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

The Winter Residency 2009, best described as 4 weeks in a wonderful eccentric  fishing village at the foot of a north-facing sea cliff on the Moray Firth during one of the coldest winters for 18 years.

The coastline and geology in this particular edge of Scotland is one that ultimately relates most strongly with that of my own family history. With a paternal heredity in the Aberdeenshire coast, this winter retreat gave me a chance to use this inspirational location to spark off some major new work which I used as a key part of the Coast Road Diaries as well as for inclusion in The Coast Festival in Banff and Macduff. I am excited by the abstraction of ‘coast’ and ‘road’ and ‘sea’: where the dirt of the earth meets the tides of the salt sea, and of peoples’ lives in that context.