julian rowe
visual artist
visual artist
...deluge
Romney Marsh is a landscape that has its feet in the water. It is land that has been reclaimed, or perhaps borrowed, from the sea,
and the ever present threat of inundation lends a certain edginess to the area, a sense that this apparently tranquil landscape exists
at a margin. At Dymchurch the great wall holding back the sea only adds to this feeling. I aimed in my work for the church of St Peter
and St Paul to evoke what I found when I first visited the Marsh - a beautiful landscape, but also an enclosed, claustrophobic one.
A major theme of the piece, and which for me characterised Romney Marsh, was that of containment. The little building I had made replicated
in miniature the one in which the viewer stood. It sat in a tub of sand and seawater taken from Dymchurch beach in a dark corner of
the silent church, and every so often a shaft of (artificial) sunlight would fall on it for a few moments.
Deluge. 2003. Cast resin iron, tin tub, sand, seawater. Installation in SS Peter and Paul, Dymchurch
julian rowe
