Julie Miles
'Essence' December
4th - January 28th 2002/3

'Is there anything better than to be out, walking, in the clear air?'

With my work I want to celebrate nature, landscape and memory and to preserve part of our natural environment. To communicate the importance and raise public awareness of the natural environment that is around us.

Walking is the source of inspiration within the work, 'always, everywhere, people have walked, veining the earth with paths, visible and invisible, symmetrical and meandering.' It is a constant tool for gathering information and to generate ideas that underpins my work. My sketch book is carried everywhere and used to collect thoughts and ideas from just a note of the sounds heard around me or a collection of mosses from a rock to quick sketches of the ridges in front. All play a major part of the experience of landscape that I want to capture in the work. Photography plays a part in the memory of my work I use it to capture elements and details of places, sometimes small details not immediately seen or understood but I gather to inform my memories of that place.

'What I take with me, what I leave behind, are of less importance than what I discover along the way.'

I use objects such as pine needles and cones, feathers and leaves, collected along the way which evokes a sense of place, a smell of the forest floor, a sound, the cry of a bird, a memory of being deep in a forest. Using smaller elements to symbolise larger experiences, objects that have fallen to the ground and most would consider woodland detritus. Each element provokes a different interpretation, reflecting the uniqueness of personal experience and memories of the landscape. These objects are used with in the work or are gathered and fill the studio to help remember a place or experience when working on the painting or ceramic pieces.

The ceramic work is created using porcelain to reflect delicateness and the fragility of nature itself, I contain the flower heads in box frames so that they are protected and preserved like specimens with in a museum exhibit. The paintings are more robust pieces of mountains and rocks reflecting the permanence of their material and construction. Using both I hope to create a balance in my work recording the landscape and celebrating nature, using my memories and experiences of my natural environment to communicate the importance of the natural environment that is around us.