Huge thanks to the brilliant Dan at Somerset Film for a great morning yesterday editing microscopic video footage of the surface of trees in different states from magnificent oaks to cut timber.

I am immersed in planning and preparations for exhibiting my first video installation with The Arborealists at Fyne Court. The exhibition forms part of the Somerset Artworks Festival 2019.

I will show ‘Wood (Ancient Oak, Cut Timber)’, comprising a wheelbarrow, logs, iPads and moving image.

The work explores interactions and relationships with the environment. My interest in the natural woodland which I walk through every day and the life-cycle of managed forests has been a key influence in the creation of this work. Perceptions and expectations of permanence and impermanence are considered.

This bursary is enabling me to develop my work with video as an artistic output in its own right to mediate my relationships with the environment. Attaching a microscope to the lens of my iPhone camera allows me to capture intricate details of the surface of the tree and timber, which will be glimpsed between the logs. Taking a ‘Heath Robinson’ approach to video, viewed through the microscope enables me to capture the surface of the tree and wood as an intimate and personal encounter. Recorded at this scale, the viewer becomes the insect crawling between the crevices in the tree bark: the tree reveals its ecosystem. I enjoy and exploit the ambiguity of imagery which occurs through magnification.

Having worked with video as a source for reinterpretation through paint and drawing media for many years, this will be my first public presentation of solely video installation work as artistic output.