This is one of my favourite images. It’s a close-up detail of a small rock in a farmer’s field-boundary wall alongside the South West Coast Path on The Lizard peninsula in Cornwall. It’s a walk I’ve done often, in every season, over the last decade or so and yet I don’t seem able to walk past it without capturing another image. I believe the type of rock is serpentine.
It doesn’t always look the same of course. The time of day, time of year and the weather conditions all make a huge difference to it. Sometimes the colours shine out, other times there are long grasses and wild flowers hanging over it, sometimes it looks dull and flat, sometimes it’s in deep shadow and occasionally it has a beetle crawling over it. Whatever state it’s in I enjoy seeing the rock, a bit like an old friend!
The colours in the stone and the lichens that have grown on it all create a harmonious abstract pattern. There are deep reds, greens, blues and even purples as well as highlights of whites, creams, greys and yellows, with veins and fractures criss-crossing the surface.
Whilst the stone itself is less than 30cm across, the image has been printed at 100cm wide x 50cm high as a limited edition of just five. It was selected by the Penwith Gallery in St Ives to be part of their Associates Winter Exhibition from November 2023 to January 2024. The work is framed in white with a large border making the overall dimensions 128cm x 78cm. It is shown below, alongside other artists work, in the beautiful gallery in the far west of Cornwall.
