SALLY WETHERALL
ARTIST
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A body of work began in 2021, using decal photographic images from the Litton landscape.
I had not previously used decals, associating them with more industrial ceramic processes, instead focusing on either direct print from landscape or etching into the surface of paper and clay. I began to be frustrated about 2 aspects of this process as it related to landscape. Firstly I found no other way to gather some of the colours I found within this place. The sky, reflections on puddles, shadows. These could not be captured through direct print. Secondly the decals appeared to actually correspond to a par of landscape which I had previously either overlooked, taken for granted, or been content to simply gather through the photographic image alone. The landscape where I live sits in the foothills of the Mendips, it is a landscape shaped by water, the Chew river runs through the village. It is also frequently raining, and the rainfall pools in the many unpaved tracks and paths that run from the village out into the countryside. The surface of the earth is transformed by water. pools, puddles and roads becoming mirrors of the sky above, hedgerow reflections, an upside down mirror world.
These decal images, sitting as they do on slabs of printed, textured and cracked clay have an affinity with this landscape process. A gossamer veil of fleeting imagery, distorted and disrupted by the earth surface beneath.
