During my foundation year at Lowestoft College I was lucky enough to be taught by an artist with an active passion for street art. Because of this she had many relevant contacts in the city which she passed on to me, and it is through her that I initially became involved with Moosey Art, the gallery for which I not only sold art but worked as an intern a short while. I also gained contact with a SPFX artist working in Norwich who also occasionally organised exhibitions in the city. He invited me to take part in 'Balance', a one off exhibition happening at the Undercroft, a busy city centre location. For this show I wanted to create a large statement piece which would really get my hand back into my practice. Knowing the space in the Undercroft, I also understood that larger pieces stood out a lot better against the unusual architecture of the subterranean space.I began to think about ways I could convey Balance. I considered initially the ever tipping balance of temperatures gradually thawing the Arctic. In that way balance is being destroyed, and an unsustainable cycle of melting started, which some researchers predicted could leave the Arctic potentially ice free from as early as 2040. From my artistic standpoint however, I thought ecological balance was a very strong interpretation of the theme, as the delicate balance of an ecosystem is perhaps one of the most intricate and precise systems in the world. Yet it is also incredibly fragile, and relies entirely on the maintenance of that balance to thrive in a managed way; changes to one side of the balance invariably makes massive repercussions also appear elsewhere. This base idea could marry with my practice very well, as it would allow me to potentially capture a great deal of diversity, and create something which is both conceptually profound and visually exquisite.
I toyed around with the idea of representing a variety of different ecosystems, however found a lot would be massively complex and detailed to represent correctly. I also wondered whether it would go down well with the potential audience to the Undercroft (immediately beneath the war memorial infront of city hall) to represent the natural British wildlife. When beginning to research further (click here), I also discovered that Britain has a very limited, focused ecosystem built up of several key species. This made it a lot easier to fully reference all aspects of it feesibly within a single piece.
I realised I could also relate this theme to my previous work on Pollinator Decline (click here). I learnt from my research that bees and other pollinators are an absolutely essential building block in a healthy ecosystem, as they start the entire cycle by pollinating the plants which spread and go on to become the dietary basis for all herbivores, who are then in turn consumed by predators. Therefore I think if I am creating a piece about a balanced ecosystem, bees should definitely feature somewhere at the centre.
I remembered seeing diagrams in old biology lessons depicting ecosystems and simply illustrating each step in the food chain, showing interrelations between predator and prey, animal and environment. They had always interested me as an effective way to demonstrate a complex relationship in a simple way. I began to think about ways I could represent this in an artistic sense, whilst emphasising aspects of 'Balance'. I considered that if I could represent a menagerie of British wildlife as a sphere of life; the pollinating bee at the centre, and lush plant-life emanating outwards, populated by gradually more complex creatures, bugs, small mammals, larger game and finally predators. In this way I could demonstrate how, although some creatures are distant from the origins of the food chain, they are all interdependent on each other to remain in balance and survive. 
I started working on a sketch based on this concept. I began designing the piece as a sqaure, as I felt this would be a reliable format and would allow to represent an even 'circle of life' so to speak. You can find the specific reasoning behind my focus on certain plants and animals in particular in the accompanying research page. I also tried to consider how the colours of the piece would balance in the way I composed each area. By putting a spread of daisies around the entire picture, I could use green and white to promote the core colours in my theme, and then tie thing into the white features on many of the animals, and the prominent greens around the other plants. I also considered potentially toning down the brighter shades such as the red and blue from the poppy and cornflower, and whether this would add or detract from the piece. I decided I could leave the painting of these until last so I could best gauge their effects on the work.
Overall I was very happy with this design, and definitely want to execute it on a large scale, not only to be able to closely capture every detail, but also because I feel like as someone with a present interest in Street Art it is important to complete some works on a grander scale. However in regard to the plans composition, I felt some of the creatures were a little squashed in, such as the deer and fox on the right hand side, and thought maybe a slightly rectangular canvas could give the work a little room to breathe. Knowing the space in the Undercroft, I hope that both the size and a selection of further considerations will make my work a statement piece in the room, which is predominently a single large chamber, and thus could benefit from being eyecatching. By creating a variety of beautiful yet accurate depictions at varying sizes and proportions, I hope this will create depth in my piece and make it equally fascinating from both near and afar. In this regard I have also employed some street art tactics, by emphasising certain recognisable shapes and balancing bold defined colours, to make my work readable from a distance. I feel excited to get to work, as I really enjoy working on different animals and having to capture the different essences of a selection of characters. So, to work on a piece where there is such a variety of exciting life is something I think I will enjoy. I also like the fantastical element created when all proportion is disregarded, such as the super magnified cow parsely and blackberries, which appear almost fairytale and unearthly when greatly enlarged.
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