November 30 2011 – December 31 2011
Field of Vision
Martha Oatway

WPG member artist Martha Oatway spent the past two years in Lancashire, UK, where she met Tracy Hill, the senior printmaking technician at the University of Central Lancashire. The two printmakers’ passion for walking developed into a project – two printmakers taking ten walks in two countries—and Field of Vision was born.

Field of Vision became a friendship, an exploration of another’s country as well as one’s own, and an exchange of ideas on seeing and walking the landscape. During the year long project Martha and Tracy did five walks in Lancashire and Tracy traveled to Washington to do five walks with Martha here. Planning these walks, both Martha and Tracy became very aware of the role of the map. Tracy says of the maps and resulting work: “When beginning the project … I always began with the map, this raised the question for me about how much information was left off the map. Were we just following someone else's path or walk and should we create our own map and walks? Time is a really the main element in this new work. The geology of place reveals worlds which we have never known yet they are worlds to which we inextricably linked.” These ideas, and others, are explored in the prints exhibited at WPG in December, and also at the Harris Museum in Preston, UK, in February 2012.