Come to Pass

An eight hour non stop performance/installation at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff – part of Experimentica ’08 Festival of Live Art. I created an environment using clay, red ochre pigment, sticks, petrified tree fungi, paint and leather skins (which I painted upon and wore). The performance utlised an old wash room that had not been modernised or decorated for many years. The space was long and narrow with many windows, some of which I painted over the panes and etched or drew onto with an engraving needle and my fingernails. For long periods I balanced a very heavy wooden tree branch on my head, which acted as a sort of pendulum and controlled my breathing, pace and movements throughout the performance. A series of drawings on table tops in wet paint indicated the passage of hours rather like tree rings record years. I made other paintings on paper sheets fixed to the walls, with pure iron oxide. Photographs by Anna Hillman.