Marking Time

Jean is interested in how the macro and micro worlds coincide and, for the artist, lichen patterns are one expression of this. Their colours are reflected in the mountains or shorelines they grow in and, like the peat she also works with, they are formed by many millennia of slow growth.

Delicate and fragile, they remind one of maps, lichen islands, earthbound, changing over time affected by the climate, water and air conditions and needing undisturbed spaces to develop in.

Lichens, mosses and peatlands have been used by people for centuries to heal and impart a kind of austere beauty to the world, but like our boggy landscape they have been overlooked in their importance. The places that hold them have been seen as wastelands or liminal spaces and have been ignored and undervalued as signs to the health of the planet.

Jean wants to highlight this fragility and beauty by printing, tracing and recording the sights and sounds of these spaces.