The Lane Is Lined

The Lane is Lined

12” x 10” (305 x 254 mm), giclée print in a signed and numbered edition of 10 plus A/P

Printed on 310gsm Rag Photographique

£75

The lane I was thinking of is a length of disused railway track running through the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire between Jackfield and the old Buildwas power station, on the south side of the River Severn. I run or walk here most days of the week. It is shaded woodland, made darker by the steep walls of the gorge, a discreetly managed wildness.

This is where bluebells look their best, in the reduced daylight whose spectrum runs from mottled shade to gloom. The strong blue is a receding colour, but it recedes less than the surrounding dark greens, giving a strange impression of advancing while retreating. The sense this creates of something half hidden, there but not quite there, is one of the endearing attributes of the bluebell.

I wanted to use a dominantly word-based graphic to convey this, and found a way of approaching it in the density of ascending strokes in the typography of the word ‘bluebell’. All I had to do was pattern the text in woodland greens, partially obscuring the verticals of the flower colour, to make an equivalent of sorts of our sense of knowing, more than seeing, the presence of bluebells.