[ONE] talked about the development of collage drawings from site specific drawings and notes, [TWO] took a diversion to discuss drawing as an act of translation and touched upon the drawing dictating its own ends, [THREE] examines the transition of the drawings to two new forms, stand alone 3d entities and an environment.

To start this post I have to step back to before the first post and talk about the reasons for addressing the thing that has sat at the back of my mind for years and is now asking to be experienced. I have always found gardens important. I can track my life through these outdoor spaces where I first experienced a simulacrum of freedom. Where I first daydreamed, projecting myself into a smaller world, that was at once battlefield, farmyard, football pitch. Where I buried hamsters, birds and cats. A space that has remained a place for play while the nature of playing has changed. Where the past is always drifting just out of sight bar the shadows in the corner of your eye. I have continually created gardens, or parts of gardens, since the 1980’s.

BA Final Show Installation 1982

This view of my BA final show in 1982 shows a selection of sculptures built from the observational drawings of storms and landscapes that are displayed behind them. Response to nature has always been there in my work. I was introduced to art in the late ’70’s as a way to explain rather describe, but increasingly I have come to see it as a way to suggest. To render an implication rather to only evidence an event or place.

Continuing with the translation of drawing into sculpture it is relatively easy to see the change from these collage/drawings

Collage Drawings 2018

To this sculpture

Ptolemy’s Garden 1

Or this one

Ptolemy’s Garden 4

There is a clear line of, for want of a better word, progress between these small sculptures and the earlier ones.

The process through drawing to sculpture is led through the development of a repertoire of marks that are refined as the pieces develop. The pieces are stand alone but are always placed to accentuate their edges and to articulate empty space through their proximity.

The work also develops into environmental pieces – the installation of the exhibition illustrated above as an obvious example – or the piece I made for my MA at www.veilworld.co.uk
This particular range of work is growing into this environment. https://www.ian-latham.com/geranium/geranium.html

3D model view of proposed geranium project installation