SOLENT: From Both Sides Now

Group exhibition
Ryde, Isle of Wight, 3-18 August 2024

Artikinesis (Adeliza Mole, Rosemary Lawrey and Amanda Bates) are exhibiting
SOLENT: FROM BOTH SIDES NOW at The Depozitory, 23 Nelson Street, Ryde PO33 2EZ
Open every day 03 to 18 August 2024
Tue – Wed 11am – 8pm
Thu – Mon 12am – 4pm
Opening Event Friday 02 August 2024 6pm -8pm

The following “statement” is about my contributions to the exhibition.

I’m standing watching the water just outside Keyhaven. The surface never stops moving. Little peaks erupt, collapse, reappear somewhere else. It’s an oscillating barrier between me and the underwater world. I realise that I know very little about the Solent’s marine life. I am not even sure what sort of fish swim here. I want to say something about the teeming life under the water, but it’s a world outside of my experience. I can only see it through the eyes of others: divers, marine biologists and underwater photographers*. The result is a series of literal impressions (relief prints), synthesised from multiple, fragmentary, glimpses.

Other experiences and reactions are more direct.

At Hurst Castle, having walked over half the distance from Keyhaven to the Isle of Wight along the spit, I watch a tall ship thread the Needles. The black headed gulls make their presence known, sounding like avian pirates with their arrr-arrrk.

I’ve been picking up seashells from the shores of the Solent and Southampton Water. Barnacled oysters, coiled winkles, spired whelks and pretty topshells as well as familiar cockles and mussels.

I am particularly interested in the whelks because I have been told that regulation of the whelk fishing industry is causing a shortage of homes for local hermit crabs. To ensure sustainability, only whelks over 45mm can be legally harvested. Their shells are of no use to the fishing industry, but larger hermit crabs need larger whelk shells. The solution seems obvious, but the shells can’t be returned to their source because they are designated as “food waste”.

The whelk shells I find on the beach are relatively small and most have holes in them: derelict houses, no good for the crabs. I like seeing the elegant internal structure through the holes.

Walking along the coast at Netley and Hamble, I watch the ferries bustle past the bulk carriers moored by the oil refinery’s towers and chimneys, and, beyond that, the greenness of the New Forest. Being here reminds me of when I lived in Southampton, an eventful, pivotal couple of years that are, unbelievably, thirty years ago. My gaze shifts to the glassy surface of the tidal water: ever changing, ever the same. I find it fascinating and, strangely, grounding.