Janette Kerr: Extreme Wave Theory, Bonhoga Gallery, Weisdale Mill, Shetland
June 25th - August 14th 2011, (neatly coinciding with the Tall Ships Race in Lerwick)
Preparation for the show
The exhibition represents the end of the first stage of an Arts Council funded research project on the interface between art and science.
On show in the top gallery are large-scale drawings and canvases, together with a series of small en-plein-air paintings, drawings, and sketchbooks, plus transparent boxes of sea water
containing 18th century documents relating to the fishing trade. The room resonates with images of dramatic waves and wild sea.
I have uploaded images of the work currently on show, for those of you who cannot get to Shetland to see the show.
During my visits to Shetland I’ve wandered into the Archives at Lerwick Museum to read 18th & 19thC documents relating to the fishing trade, and first-hand accounts by survivors of 19thC fishing disasters, and then visited sites where such tragedies occurred. I’ve learnt about mussel farming, discussed fish with Scalloway fishmongers, and the lure of the sea whilst buying turps in Lerwick’s DIY store. talked to boat-builders, net-makers, historians, archivists, scientists, story-tellers, artists and poets. I’ve been out on the sea - amongst the voes with a Scalloway creel fisherman, travelled with the pilot boat from Sullom Voe oil terminal to meet a tanker from India, I’ve clung to the sides of a tiny ferry on route to the Outer Skerries, waves washing over the deck as we pitched and rolled in a force 8 while I attempted to draw. I’ve sat in snow painting and drawing until my fingers froze, been blown by gusts of wind, drenched by spray and sleet, returning home with salt-encrusted skin.
It all gets inside your head, and now I’m lost in the world of Shetland and the sea. I have so much material it’s terrifying looking at it all; difficult to know where to start and when to stop.
White light, red light, oil & coloured pencil with photographic element on canvas,122x152cm 48"x60" 
Pillier, Da Skerries V, oil on board, 295x295mm 11½”x11½”
I’ve realized how different it is to make drawings and paintings from the experience of being on the sea as opposed to drawings and paintings made from the rocks, and this has affected the work I’ve been making. Some of the documents and artifacts I found in the museum have crept into my paintings, along with oceanographic imagery from the Bergen Meteorological office.
Convergence zone (triptych), oil & graphite with photographic element on canvas, 80x165cm 31½”x65”
The science/art aspect is the most challenging area of my research. It too has been having an affect on my work, and the second part of the project will focus more upon oceanographers’ research on extreme waves, and will be shown in Norway hopefully in 2012. The very precise and scientific procedures that mathematicians and scientists employ in studying the sea seems such a contrast with the way I, as an artist work, but in fact we both seek the same ends: to come to an understanding with and of nature.
Stories from the sea, 18th&19thC facsimile documents under seawater
I would like to thank Trevor Jamieson who made me four beautiful 18th & 19th century facsimile documents that I have installed under sea-water in the gallery. Together these documents tell a story – from the fishermen’s agreements, and the delivery of a sixareen boat, to the receipt for barrels of ling and herring, and note about a fisherman still being in debt to the laird at the end of fishing season and having to promise him half a horse and foal.
A catalogue of the work on show at the Bonhoga Gallery will be available.
I will be giving a paper as part of a panel - Meteorological Imaginations - at the Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference in London, Aug 31st – Sept 2nd.
I will also be presenting my research at the international oceanographic Extreme Wave Theory conference in Geneva in October (scary!). I hope to be showing some of my drawings at these conferences.
