During the 70s, I led a fairly rootless existence wandering Europe and some of the Middle East and North Africa. I had trained as an engineer but had no intention of returning to that after such freedom.
When travelling, I had experienced and loved some very wild places, and so on my return around late 78, I tried to start studying towards a career that would take me to such places again, but crucially, pay me to go. Cartography. It turned out that my idea of a cartographer was completely out of date, and more like an Edwardian adventurer than an office bound screen watcher.
I was soon distracted from that idea and became involved in making idiosyncratic one of a kind pieces of furniture with an old friend, and for twelve years that took us on several trips to exhibitions in New York and Los Angels and London. The nature of our work was more to do with aesthetics than utility which eventually led me into fine art.
But we all have those fork in the road moments, and my imagination often took me down the path that I didn’t take. This series called The Cartographer emerged in the form of paintings, drawings, and cartographic chart works, all, it must be said, of an Edwardian and quasi scientific nature.
These are a few examples.
