This new series of works in ink began in a riverside studio in Llandysul, Wales, in July 2024. I prepared inks by gathering oak galls in the Raven forest, Curracloe, Wexford, crushed and steeped them in distilled water and left them to ferment. I cooked this solution in an iron pot to make a deep dark brown. I love how this ink bites. How it etches, how it spreads; insists its own marks.

 

In Wales we visited beach caves and rolled over hills lined with broadleaf. I am in awe of Welsh small fields edged in oaks, their bountiful hedgerows, governed by red kites. I did not draw from observation, but took our daily trips back to the studio. Trees and hills erupted in the ink. Wanderers; families; selfie-makers appeared. The ink spread in many directions. I played to keep up. Trees and rocks wanted painting, but with not enough hours for every wonder, I slowed, and returned after some years, to cave painting. A painter’s (re)treat. A place to view from: to see margins and edges blurred.

Being July, there was no snow, yet I was drawn to paint it. Imagining slopes covered, how we might traverse them; the wonder of first prints. Claw, paw, foot. 

The magic of forms made, then melted.

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David Begley, July 2024