The Ark

Biddy Hudson

Edition of 10

Framed £220

10cm x 12.5cm

Unframed £180 - please contact us for details of unframed print

Polymer print on paper

Artist Statement

I come from Keighley in the industrial West Riding of Yorkshire and currently live and work in Oxford.

My work is very much based in my politics and current concerns but I am also fascinated by our individual journeys through life and the ephemera and clutter we all collect on the way.

This piece is one from a series of photopolymer plates prints called “Shadows on the stairs”

I first started this project, recording this central part of my house, the light and the dark, and the things on the stairs with a series of dry point prints some years ago. When introduced to the photopolymer plate process I realised that it would be an ideal way to continue with this unresolved project. As I worked at taking the photos, selecting which ones to use and looking at the prints produced, I began to realize that there are some curious and troubling juxtapositions. A photo of one grandmother next to the trunk of a granddaughter that we think she never knew about and certainly never met. The laundry basket of the other grandmother sitting on the same trunk who certainly knew of existence of my half sister but again never met her. 

I also realise that where objects are also has significance.  Things that I feel reflect/reinforce who I am are more evident and accessible. The books about Yorkshire and geology, things from Brussels where I used to live are in the hall.  A dolls’ house, and my cowboy boots that I have a strong emotional attachment to are outside my bedroom door. On the top floor where I rarely go are the things that disturb and anger me; about the unresolved history of my family.

So a printing project that started several years ago just recording my staircase has had the unexpected consequence of making me looking more closely at the meaning of all these possessions and given a depth of meaning to the work itself.