The River is Us

The River is Us is the beginning of a new body of work exploring how the behaviour of rivers parallels our own inner landscapes. Created using water collected from the River Morda in Shropshire, these paintings emerge through relationship between artist and material. By studying river dynamics—particularly eddies, where flowing water creates a vortex—I began to see ecological processes as a language for understanding consciousness, intimacy and the ways living systems organise themselves.

Working with water allows the paintings to reveal their own structures. Vortices become eyes, cells, wings, caves and river systems; boundaries become places of encounter; obstacles create new possibilities for movement. Through river language, ecological function becomes a way of understanding what the art is saying. At its heart, this work celebrates emergence, relationship and the radical joy for the river that sustains life.