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Reflections and Revelations

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For the past two years Digswell Artist Sally Tyrie has been working on a Collaborative project with Artist Helen Terry, to document and respond to the National Trust Nature Reserve at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire.

This project will culminate in an Art Trail at the Reserve and an Exhibition at Babylon Gallery in Ely in April 2018.

“Ideas and outcomes have evolved following multiple joint visits to the reserve at different seasons, in conjunction with studio work.

The culmination of this project will be the installation of an Art Trail at the reserve in March 2018.

Mixed media work will be displayed in selected Hides around the site revealing observations and lines of interest and inviting visitors to participate in alternative ways of seeing the Fen.

Collaboration has been an important element in the evolution of our project and our artistic responses. Collectively our work revolves around a dialogue between mark making, material and process. Shared themes and responses include an interest in glimpses and traces, aspects of ambiguity and fragmented images that suggest alternative narratives.

As one of the last remnants of undrained Fen the reserve at Wicken provides a unique glimpse of how the land will have looked in the past. It also offers an insight into how human intervention is vital to maintaining the delicate balance between land and water and how we manage this fragile relationship.

It is this balance and the tensions that exist between land and water that are of specific interest and concern for our work. Also, how we manage and live with this”.