RYAN BANCROFT

ARTIST STATEMENT

Stream Palimpsest Series

Water, in its continuous motion, is both a witness and participant in the shaping of the earth’s memory; its currents and tides acting as carriers of time. It weaves fluid connections between ecosystems, people, geographies, and timelines, linking past and future through an ever-shifting present.

My work engages with this idea by capturing the fleeting, ephemeral presence of water, beginning with suspending a split second of its flow in graphite on paper. These initial marks become a form of witnessing, later translated into paintings through gestural responses. I read the landscape’s gestures much like a text, responding with asemic marks that suggest meaning without fixed language and act as traces of emotion and place.

The act of capturing water’s transient imprint reflects our own impermanence, our brief presence within the vast geological strata of the world. I seek to provoke reflection on our place within the natural world, especially in an era defined by the Anthropocene, where industrial values often obscure our intrinsic relationship with elemental forces like water that were once central to the founding of civilisations.

Through layers of adding and removing painted gestures, I translate these traces into personal expressions. These palimpsests speak to my own encounters with nature, and to a wider conversation between permanence and impermanence, presence and absence. In these layered surfaces, histories converge, inviting contemplation of our existence within the planet’s unfolding story.

EMAIL:

Ryan.bancroft@sky.com

INSTAGRAM:

ryan.bancroft.art