In this series, I explore the soil under our feet as a metaphor for life, fertility, belonging and profound beauty. While there seems no doubt that my rural roots have nurtured my personal visual language, I am interested in how the landscapes of our childhood, rural or urban, imprint our minds and form who we become. In Soft Ground, I examine the link between our emotional landscape and our cultural, sensual and spiritual attachment to the earth.

Steel, copper and copper alloys with their natural inherent qualities become the canvases for my wall sculpture and with little manipulation the surfaces can soon resemble the earth’s crust. I have a deep appreciation for the dynamic properties of the material. It simultaneously conveys strength and permanence and in the same instant appears fragile, soft or luminous. This contradiction or juxtaposition in the medium supports the aesthetics of the abstract concepts I have been exploring. The images are deeply rooted in observations of nature but evolve in surprising directions as I experiment with the metal to create nuances of texture and colour. The abstract fields in which these images dwell reflect layers of time and history where the distinction between past and present is blurred. Stories of physical or metaphysical journeys across a landscape are constructed using etched fragments of photos, script and in some cases, fields of apparent emptiness. The welded free standing sculptures in this exhibition lean somewhat more towards the figurative where I explore the theme of our interconnectedness with the environment and with each other. “Grounded” and “Column with three Circles” reflect iron as the backbone of the earth. Copper has historically been a central symbol for earth and was one of the first metals used in art. With etching, soldering, welding, grinding and polishing, these mostly salvage metals continue to provide endless interest for me and offer an opportunity to give new life and meaning to materials deemed worthless. While most of the surfaces on the sculptures are carefully planned, some are exposed to chance, which can lead to the elation of discovery. (Harder 2009)