Iris Priest

22nd April – 1st May 2009
Private View 1st May

Post-residency Statement

“The Residency at No. 1. Woodbine was an unparalleled, unreal experience…it opened up for me both a literal space within and beyond the city but also an abundantly enriching contemplative, mental and creative space.

The time I spent on the allotment was an enchanted time-out-of-time. Being able to spend those days in a space which is actually completely other to the usual studio environment, a space which is full of growing things, full of gentle sounds and silences, influenced completely by the changes in the weather and time of day, all of this contributed to a new mind set which ultimately helped to evolve my ways of thinking and working.

The Allotment became for me a site both to respond to but through which to look at the development of new concepts and methodologies within my practice. For me it became a microcosm, a lens, for examining a point of conflict between the civilizing impulses of humans and the otherness of untameable, unknowable forces of nature.

During the Residency I worked on a wall drawing (approximately 550cm X 220cm) which, whilst responding to the space itself and the ideas it provoked, significantly influenced the evolution of some of my personal iconography.”