A conscientious artist often revisits locations or themes for further exploration or development. I am guilty of revisiting cemeteries, cities, countries, landscapes and wildernesses in the hope I will be able to see something differently. Looking further into the microscope and responding to the vagaries of the light, weather conditions, landscape changes and new equipment lends an excitement to returning somewhere again. Of course it is not just the subsequent images produced which is important; it is both the visual and linguistic journey.
On a bitterly cold and dark winter’s afternoon just several days ago I returned to the Somerset Levels to Weston Zoyland Aerodrome, a second world war landscape which is now largely devoid of aeronautical function. Instead large expanses have been released into a strange hybrid of farming, engineering and dereliction, where dumping of detritis facilitates a wanton landscape which has the character of sprawl.
This collision between man and nature, in the absence of its formative role though constantly reminded of that role by its topography, has its own distinctive interest.
