ATLAS has commissioned artist Richard Skelton, to respond to Bethan Huws’ film Singing for the Sea, and the landscape that formed its temporary backcloth when we screened it in Skye Sailing Club in 2016.
Richard’s work is informed by landscape, evolving from sustained immersion in specific environments and deep, wide-ranging research incorporating toponymy and language, ecology and geology, folklore and myth.
As part of this year-long project titled, A Work for the North Atlantic, Richard has created a blog post for us in response to his initial research trip to Skye in February.
As my work is closely informed by place, I made a research trip to Skye this week to immerse myself in the landscape. During my stay I began experimenting with film in response to fragments of text from Hebridean folksongs alluding to the mountains and the sea. Over the coming months I will begin work on a new musical composition that explores the elemental nature of the island’s topography and weather.