Washed Away

At the heart of Washed Away is a photograph of an empty day bed on Kamari Beach, Santorini. Standing alone on the near-deserted beach, its canopied frame and billowing fabric had a striking, almost surreal beauty.
 
I had recently visited the Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Britain, and the scene reminded me of her photograph Portrait of Space, Al Bulwayeb, in which a distant landscape is viewed through torn fabric. Like Miller’s image, the day bed seemed to offer both a shelter and a threshold—framing the space beyond while inviting the viewer to imagine stepping through it.
 
Using the cyanotype process, I layered a hand-painted negative of the day bed over a second negative of waves lapping at the shoreline. Sea, fabric and shore merge until the distinction between them begins to disappear. The waves seem to pass through the day bed, dissolving its form and carrying it out towards the horizon, as though it is actually being washed away into the sea.
 
Hand-applied gold leaf traces the folds of the fabric, preserving fleeting fragments of light amid the shifting layers. The title Washed Away reflects both the movement of the water and the way memories gradually change: their edges soften, their details recede, yet traces of their beauty remain.