CHRIS DRURY

CHRIS DRURY BIOGRAPHY

My work seeks to make connections between different phenomena in the world, specifically between: - Nature and Culture - Inner and Outer - Microcosm and Macrocosm All of my works, over the past 25 years have been concerned with these connections. This is what unites the whole body of work. I do not have a particular style, nor do I prefer one material or process over another, rather I will seek the most appropriate means and material to find, and make explicit, those connections. To this end I collaborate with scientists and technicians from a broad spectrum of disciplines and technology. This may mean that one exhibition or work outside may look very different to another. Each work starts from zero and breaks new ground. Its starting point is the place and/or the situation. My work therefore is a continuing dialogue with the world, exploring our place in the universe.

STARTING POINTS

An Experience of Landscape

From early in my career I have walked and spent time in the so called ‘wild’ places on the planet. This has given me a bedrock of experience from which I continue to draw inspiration for all aspects of my work. My first long walk was in the Canadian Rockies with Hamish Fulton in 1975. I began to make small interventions in the landscape during these walks: a shelter made from materials to hand as a way of exploring how we dwell in the land; or a cairn built fast as a way of marking a remarkable place at an extraordinary time. Materials from these places would be placed in the rucksack and later made into baskets or small bundles. Works made from these experiences are essentially photographic. These early interventions have taught me how to use simple, local materials which can give rise to large structures, made cheaply and simply with a minimum CO2 footprint. Shelters later became cloud chambers and baskets, woven architectural structures. Today, when I walk, I tend to leave these landscapes untouched. Instead I use photographs, video, maps, earth pigment and satellite images to make works from the experience, after the event. I may also work with scientists and clinicians to make links to other areas in the microcosm. My two months spent in Antarctica (2006-7) act as a kind of absolute or benchmark, with which to compare and contrast other phenomena.

The Site

When I am invited to make something on a particular site I take into account: the landscape and ecology, the local culture and the remit of the organisation. The land, the lie of the land and the material of the land will be the primary influence on the kind of work envisioned. This holds true for a work designed to go inside a building. These factors will be mediated by the requirements of the client and may mean a collaboration with various experts in the particular field. Through site visits, drawings and dialogue, the work will evolve until an agreed plan and budget emerges. Then the work will be constructed. A work may grow and change and may require a degree of management.

Mushrooms and Text

Like the composer John Cage, I have always been fascinated by fungi. Mushrooms are the great recyclers of our ecosystems. They break down dead matter back into the soils in which we grow our food. The mandala pattern of the gills reminds us of the cycles of the universe. A mushroom can feed you, kill you or cure you. I first used a mushroom spore print at the centre of the ‘Medicine Wheel’ in 1982 and have continued to collect mushrooms and their spore prints ever since. I now have a library of these prints which have been scanned and stored and which I can use as the basis of further works. Used in conjunction with hand written text in radiating lines mirroring the pattern of the gills or flowing out in more chaotic patterns, I am able to use this juxtaposition of pattern and text to make new connections.

The Body

A problem with modern societies is that we see ourselves as separate from nature and therefore at liberty exploit it. The result is that we destroy the very ground of our existence. However, it is obvious that we are nature and that systems in our bodies obey the same laws as systems in the universe. So I have continued to explore this using a number of different media, materials and scales; the largest, Heart of Reeds being several acres. During a residency at Conquest Hospital in Hastings I explored wave patterns in echocardiograms in works on paper, and later incorporated these same patterns into courtyard garden designs for hospitals. Two have so far been built and another should be completed in 2007. My continuing interest has been systems of flow in the body, notably in the heart, and similar systems in rivers, glaciers and weather patterns on the planet. I have made a number of works from Iceland using satellite images of storms experienced on the ground. In Antarctica scientists have been collecting echo-recordings of the icecap from aircraft and the resulting echo-images are remarkably similar to echocardiograms and give us a unique picture of the last 900,000 years, laid down in layers in the ice. It is my intention to work with this data to make new links.