I live in Norfolk (about as far from the coast as you can and still live in Norfolk). There have been a series of sperm whale strandings on the North Norfolk Coast and on the other side of the Wash in Lincolnshire (and on mainland Europe).  I have not gone to see the carcasses (for lots of reasons, not least that I don’t want to be part of the whale selfie crowd and having seen sperm whales in the Atlantic Ocean I don’t really want to see one rotting on a beach).  But I have been thinking a lot about them and talking to people about it (I’m known for my interest in things whale related so people have been asking me about them).

I have been quite preoccupied with whale stranding and whale skeletons for a while now. As artist in Residence at Burton Constable Hall near Hull I have been confronted with the huge skeleton of a sperm whale that stranded on the Holderness coast in 1825 (whale stranding is not a recent phenomenon).  In preparation for my exhibition there in the spring I have been working on images of their whale skeleton and sperm whales in general.  I have also taken inspiration from some of the furnishing and other decorative elements in the Hall itself.  As quite often happens with me it will be a small fragment or apparently insignificant object or pattern that will attract my attention and this was the case with the small piece of folded blue and white patterned fabric in one of the cupboards on the French Landing.  Now I’m working at home (the Hall being closed until Easter) I’ve been sketching the pattern, teasing out the elements in the four pieces of folded fabric, trying to work out from my photographs how the pattern expands beyond my source images and drawing putative sections.

Having made some drawings I was at a loss as how to use them as they didn’t seem to fit with any of the whale skeleton imagery I had. Working on another piece (based on the red friezes in the Gallery) I came up with a possible composition that might work as a two colour screen print.

Looking at the print I made today I saw the huge body of a whale juxtaposed with a shape that echoed the coastline of East Anglia. And I will call the print “Stranding”.

Stranding, Screen print