Watershed/Bloodshed (detail)

1991 Castle Museum, Nottingham

Watershed/Bloodshed came out of my involvement in a collaborative project with an Indian dancer and students from Nottingham Polytechnic based on the Ramayana. (The Ramayana is an epic Indian story and is viewed as the triumph of good over evil). Colour played an important part in the performance, held at Wollaton Hall in Nottingham. Each colour used represented a character from the story. In previous work I used little colour because of the difficulties of its cultural and historical connotations. My work during this time became more involved with surface, texture and reflective qualities of a wide range of materials. I wanted to explore different ways of setting up a narrative between hard and malleable, transparent and opaque objects.