PERSONAL MAPS 2017
I started to draw these simple personal maps in 2017. Their emergence and development was quite unexpected. I can only suggest that they came from a deep need to revisit my past and understand it. My mind turned to places and experiences that I have held onto, or filed for future reference. Echoes of my childhood and places half remembered emerged in a simplified linear form, sometimes superimposed over archetypal faces of my younger self and my parents. A kind of alphabet that I had used in my previous graphic works became more clearly defined: Boats became symbols of change and transition, waves signify a difficult journey and trees stand for hope. Slowly this symbolism began to merge with remembered details of places and people from different times in my life. It was in this organic way that my work on ‘Personal Maps’ emerged. Eventually, I started to feel the need to create maps of actual places and was subsequently commissioned to create cartographic works that combined present and past 'layers of time' and cultural changes and transitions. My commissions and residencies have resulted in a number of maps, including a reconstructed Map of the old Jewish neighbourhood of Chania in Crete, a map of 'New Jerusalem' and a personal Map of Jerusalem and Map of Trezza Azzopardi's 'No Hiding Place' for the Digital Literary Map of Wales.
