Highland Lass

Screen print, gold leaf and acrylic on aluminium

Image 75 x 50cm // Framed 85 x 60cm

Lloyds List no4116 Marine List sates Friday 2nd January record that Highland Lass, under Captain Bruce, sailing from Demerara, a historical region in the Guyanas, on the north coast of South America, now part of the country of Guyana, to London, bilged near Deal and was lost. Captain and crew were saved.

PROJECT WRECKED

The slightly spooky history of the Goodwin Sands has always fascinated me. The sheer number of ships wrecked in this maritime graveyard is astounding.

My work for this exhibition, Wrecked, is a collection of imagined ghost portraits of captains of ships sunk on the sands reimagined as pub signs, a nod to the sheer number of pubs Deal town supported in the past. I found the names of the ships and the date they sank using Lloyds list and gilded them in large letters at the top and bottom of each piece. Using artistic licence, I reworked naval portraits of the time each ship sank, into Warholesque prints – transparent, frayed and ghost-like. I then painted seascapes on aluminium and screen printed each portrait on top the paintings. The works reference both our fascination with the past and the ship as a symbol of economic development and the nation state.