Hyreth

What do we mean when we say we come from a place? What is a homeland? Why do some memories seem to be located geographically as well as emotionally? Hyreth is an attempt to examine these questions through a personal exploration of memory and place. Each work in this series is a representation of a formative experience in my childhood or adolescence, made in the location where that experience took place. Together, the images compose a fragmented coming of age story, set in the rural Cornish landscape of the Lynher Valley and Bodmin moor; but they also deliberately suggest multiple interpretations and associations. A hint of the surreal in the imagery acknowledges the unreliability of memory and the tendency towards self-mythologising and elaboration. Things are never quite as you remember. The Cornish word “Hyreth” has no direct translation into English but its meaning is something like “nostalgia for a place which no longer exists”. What better description for the land of the past - the landscape of our memories.