On the seventh of August 2019, my cat killed a bird. She brought it in the house, where I became the witness to its last few urgent breaths.  This did not happen often in our house, it was a disruption to the usual ebb and flow. 

I left the bird on the outside table, waiting for some time when I could dig a hole.  In that moment, lying there on the table the space became so quiet, calm, a peace washed over everything around it.  A contrast to the chaos and violence of the way it lost its life. Two weeks later, it happened again.

The bond that exists between people and place has been an enduring focus of my practice. During the development of a previous body of work, Around here, I was increasingly drawn to make images that responded to the relationship between site, place and the local. In doing so, what emerged was a desire to explore the complexities of our understanding of ‘home’.

This series has become an extension of that work but also represents a subtle shift in thought. A development in my perspective of the significance of ‘home’ and the fragile nature of our connection to place. A chance encounter at the end of a life has opened up a new direction and approach to the process of making. Working with still life and at a slow, almost meditative, pace in a space within my home. Here this work is sequenced to enable a dialogue with which to contemplate the concept of home and its relationship to the presence and absence of life.