Di Masters

Reclaiming Ground

My etchings and aquatint images are a response to my own experience of living and working in small rural and remote communities; the various landscapes, events and cultures which have impacted significantly on me and others who have migrated and resettled, many times, finding their place and a way to belong. My sense of what it means to belong has been communicated pictorially by the use of elemental landscape ( fire, water, air and earth ) and vessels motifs.

Some images have a narrative of human struggle but ultimate success through adherence to, and sharing of strong cultural traditions and celebration, practices which have enriched the new society within which many migrants find themselves. Other images reference the drift of shared knowledge and cultural practice through different landscapes.

Through my image making, I have come to understand that a sense of belonging may not be about being rooted within a particular landscape but can be a nomadic perspective, that of being at home in a state of transit across many landscapes. – Di Masters