This exhibition is about “Time”
I’ve lived more than 40 years on these islands and I believe it has affected my view and concept of time. Paths I used to walk as a child are now in the sea. There’s a metaphor for you! But it’s more than erosion and entropy.

Mostly we think of time as linear. Day follows night follows day, on into weeks, years, centuries and millennia. We grow older, it passes. But it is also cyclic. Tides flow in and out, repeating patterns reoccur in nature. Are they the same? What lasts? Matter changes and reforms. Seas roll against rocks, grinding them into sand which, under pressure or heat, in time, turns back into rocks.

Sometimes we perceive time as passing slowly, occasionally it seems to stop or vanish in a blink of an eye. It depends on one’s viewpoint. Geological time is slow, a star’s lifetime is long, but a mayfly’s is short, to us. Time is both precious and the enemy, there never seems enough. It’s gone too soon and we don’t necessarily appreciate it in the moment.

Maybe it’s not linear, maybe all we have is this instant. Perhaps there was no yesterday or promise of tomorrow. We should live in the present and enjoy what we have.

I hope you enjoy these paintings, pieces of time, my island time.
Stephen Morris November 2021