A is for Axon

This is a preliminary version of a work called “A is for Axon,” which is part of a series on “The Knowledge” – the famously hard exam that London taxi drivers have to pass to get their license.

Studying for The Knowledge significantly changes your brain.

I’d like to generate a very large version of this, so if you happen to want such a thing, do reach out!

Through a Looking Glass, Darkly (2023)

8” x 10” Digitally Generated Image

Limited Metal Edition of 5 $115

Our idea of past people is obscured by the stories told of them, but a little shows through.

Based on “Pomona”, a photograph of Alice Liddell at 20 by Julia Margaret Cameron, with word-shapes from “Through the Looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll

Narcissus’ Last Tear (2023)

10” x 8” Digitally Generated Image

Limited Metal Edition of 5 $115

Echo fell in love with Narcissus.

Alas, Narcissus fell for his reflection in a pond. Couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. Couldn’t eat, drink, or sleep.

He perished crying because such a beautiful creature would no longer be in the world and was changed, at the moment of his death, to a small golden flower (out of frame).

Or so the myth has it.

The Mirror Crack’d I (2023)

20” x 12” Digitally Generated Image

Limited Canvas Edition of 5 $250

Our reality changes when the mirror cracks.

This was produced by reflecting Waterhouse’s “The Lady of Shallot” through a randomly-generated crack from side to side, extracting a detail from the result.

Based on The Lady of Shallot (1888) by John William Waterhouse and inspired by “The Lady of Shallot” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Mirror Crack’d II (2023)

10” x 8” Digitally Generated Image

Limited Metal Edition of 5 $115

I hadn’t read the Tennyson poem when I started work on this show - I only had an impression of it from ‘Anne of Green Gables’. I knew there was death, of course, but it’s darker than I had realized.

Based on The Lady of Shallot (1888) by John William Waterhouse and inspired by the poem,“The Lady of Shallot,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

City of Light (2023)

10" x 8" Digitally Generated Image

Limited Metal Edition of 5 $115

Inspired by the ubiquitous ironwork window railings of Paris, with a nod to the Catholic culture of its secular society, this image emerged from the idea of Euler spirals reflected in an Euler spiral.

An Euler spiral’s curvature changes in proportion to the distance along the curve. It converges on a point but never gets there. As a mathematician by training and a pedant by inclination, I have to admit the Euler spirals here are limited and approximate.

Gap (2023)

18.75” x 26.5” Digitally Generated Image

Limited Edition of 5 $ 125

In September 2023, I walked across England following the Hadrian’s Wall Path. The most photographed view along that walk was the tree at Sycamore Gap.

I say “was”. On September 27, 2023, during a storm, the tree was felled with a chain-saw.

The colours of the stones in this image were extracted from snapshots I took on that walk.

Sense of Place series