South London Dreaming

These words are taken from the artist's statement.

Under the influence of those Peruvian land-drawings that can only be seen from a flying saucer I attempted to find if there were similar cryptic signs hidden in the layout of South East London streets.

The first study, made at the end of 1972, was a promising failure, but the second edged towards the kind of elegant glyph I had in mind. It started, as I should have known such things must, with a circumambulation of the Oval Cricket Ground. Its corresponding finial passes through what fifteen years later was to become my studio at Bellenden Road.

This Mapwalk, South London Dreaming, 2004 is a second version made taking advantage of the revised street plan. It was shown at Utilitarian Dreams, an exhibition in Brighton in 2005 and at Debris Fields, an exhibition in Bolton 2006.

It was shortly after this, when trying to walk a perfect circle around my house at a radius of half a mile, that I developed the scheme that became 20 sites n years.

See the development of this subject in the 20 sites n years section.