"Becoming Oxford"

This week, the Lady Mayor of Oxford, Councillor Louise Upton, presented "Becoming Oxford" to the Mayor of Bonn, one of Oxford's twin cities. This was commissioned jointly from myself and my artistic colleague and friend Anne Griffiths as a gift in response to a beautiful map of Bonn presented to the Lady Mayor last year.

In a world where xenophobia, isolationism and intolerance is on the rise, I know that Oxford's relationship with all its twin cities is greatly valued and it is also true for us. Art plays a great part in that, and we deeply value our collaborations and friendships with our fellow artists in Bonn.

YOU ARE HERE!

I’m very pleased that my copper ink drawing “A Crack In The Record”, has been selected for a second exhibition this year, having recently appeared as part of FLOW at Modern Art Oxford (September - October 2020 but still visible online here.

It now also appears as part of the online exhibition “YOU ARE HERE”, organised by the @katmapped collaborative (artists James Stewart and Kate Trafeli). The exhibition explores how the concept of maps and mapping, internal and external, has informed living artists works and thoughts . 

Mapping, and the use of maps as a way of thinking about place and being in place in both space and time, is of course key to “A Crack In The Record”, as I explain on the YOU ARE HERE website:

"This copper ink drawing explores a disused railway line on Anglesey. Its route operates as a silence/absence that explores memory as sound/silence through a form of mapmaking, designed to be displayed flat. Copper operates as a visual metaphor for Anglesey’s industrial heritage. I have experimented with ideas/methodologies of recording and preserving information: contours on map/landscape, yes, but also the groove on a record, or the lines on the stump of a felled tree."

Mark Clay. YOU ARE HERE, November 2020.

https://katmapped.org/now-on%3A-%22you-are-here%22

Image below: detail from “A Crack In The Record”, Mark Clay, 2020. H900mm X W1100mm, copper ink on paper. Image copyright: Mark Clay 2020.