Jess Davies

From the Sky series

Reduction linocut prints.

THE PANDEMIC EFFECT

Ironically, lockdown has been a busy time for me, but not making work, and not looking at other people's work much either (a key ingredient for inspiration).

Although I sell my prints, I do not live on sales of work, especially now with galleries closed or only just re-opening. I lost my part-time teaching work, so I have had to find other ‘socially distanced’ work – gardening, decorating, leaving less time for my artist life. I still have studio rent to pay for, and I am not giving that up – my studio is my sanity.

So I have been very envious of those who have had ‘nothing to d o all day’ except art practice.

I have been daily so grateful that I live 'in the green', in the beauty of Devon. The prints I am showing are, as is often the case with my work, inspired by Dartmoor. Dartmoor is just the name for: the wild space where I can get away from complexity into the sphere of nature where the ‘I’ mind recedes, and something starts to express itself through my being.

I feel myself wanting to move towards a less literal expression of that spirit.