These drawing series are from sketchbooks I have been working with over the last year. Due to a traumatic injury on my arm and extensive surgery, I was unable to work in the studio. I found myself off work and confined to home, so resorted to working in a small sketchbook format – I think of these drawings as my ‘Rehabilitation Works’
The first series resemble natural history illustrations, they make use of my shell collection brought back from the Caribbean over many years. It was there that I first watched hermit crabs and their peculiar way of inhabiting other creature’s shells: as they grow they must ‘change up’ their home. At the moment of transition, when they emerge from one shell and squeeze into another, their soft helpless bodies are extremely vulnerable to predators and the elements.
As I emerged from being encased in a heavy plaster cast from shoulder to hand and started the long slow painful process of rehabilitation, I could relate to the crab’s fearful moment of transition.
This became the series ‘Still Life in Mobile Homes’ rendered with a biro, brush and ink and Tipex.
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