Bay, 1994
oil on board. 48 x 45.5 cm
Private collection
I was very much finding my feet during this period. I had done some paintings which for the first time felt ‘right’, and with this one a lot of elements came together, which was very exciting for me. The block of dark sea; the crazy scale of the town; losing the horizon altogether; realising I could use detail without being illustrational – it was an important painting for me. The meeting of land and water would be something that recurred a lot in the work. And the idea of elemental things like sea or forest being given an edge or a boundary by humans. At the time I was working on it I was a bit obsessed by it. When not in the studio I would involuntarily imagine myself walking on the roads I had painted.
Carol Rhodes. Artist’s notes for the exhibition Survey at MAC Belfast, 2018