Walking through the streets at night I re-examine the same over-looked aspects that catch my attention during daytime. In darkness, poles of differing heights and thicknesses punctuate the pavement - flanked by silhouettes of unfurling organic growth. A dimly lit telephone cross-box has been left slightly ajar to reveal a twisted series of wires, inside of which a hundred invisible late evening exchanges must echo. Bins left out for collection fade into the luminescence of the night sky whilst their street-lit shadows stretch out across the paving stones long and menacingly; mystical butterflies appear in a curious symmetry occurring between backlit porch railings

and their shadows. In fact, it is the shadows of the city that strike me most potently, transforming the familiar features of the everyday into curious patterns and anthropomorphic forms that might be from another world.

 

The stage is set for a kind of fairy tale, but not one of times gone by, a fairy tale of the here and now. The soundtrack is of cars swishing by in the rain, the click of traffic lights and the distant giggles and hollers of late night revellers. A tram rattles by and pauses a moment before the guffaws fade away. There is something unnerving in this shift in realities, something brooding or bordering on a sense of the pre-apocalyptic, a warning of things to come.

 

A passing car highlights the retro-reflective green domes of a cat sitting in my path. A figure steps out from beneath a streetlamp and I shudder then pick up my pace. I have a sudden urge to capture these moments, to freeze them in ink or transform them into sculptural form. My intuition suggests that they are mark-makers of the funereal.

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The death of the day gives rise to the spirits of the night.