Tufted textile // Mock studio installation, Visual Arts Scotland’s Centenary Exhibition ‘Now & Then’, Dalkeith Palace, Edinburgh, 2024
In the style of a mediaeval tapestry, taken from JCR‘s ‘I CARE NOT‘, ‘The Laden Land’ tells the story of a kingdom in disarray. A horizontal triptych and a vertical diptych. In the bottom half, we see from left to right the depiction within the walls of the state. On the far left, a circus of political figures populate the entrance of the bereaved king’s tent. On the far right, a mob of debaucherous drunks spill out of a local tavern. Between them, front and centre, Brother Death burns at the stake – charged with the crime of luring the Queen and the rest of the plague victims from the mortal realm to the prophetic Vally of the Sun. By Royal decree, all the ships of the Kingdom have been sent in search of the Vally of the Sun, but none have returned with good news or otherwise, all lost to the perils of the sea. The smoke from the fires of the execution rise above the turreted walls, merging with clouds to form one of Sister God’s stormy eyes. Her far left eye, enshrouded in smoke and striking lighting at the sea, represents the wrath of this forsaken Goddess. Her far-right eye, raining down tears on shipwrecks, represents her grief. Her third eye, death’s wheel of fortune, is the central motif of the upper half of the image and represents The Vally of the Sun – an elusive glen formed by the parting of the upper branches of the last tree. The prince, heir to the throne and the seed of hope for the future reaches upon the precipice of a resolution for his people. Little do they realise that their scapegoat, along with their future, will fall with this last tree.
