As I Walked Out

When the artist was 18 his father bought him a one way ticket to Spain. Within 24 hours of arriving he had all his possessions stolen and lost all his money. He subsequently undertook a journey on foot down the Costa del Sol along the same route that Laurie Lee had walked 50 years earlier. Certain events in life seem to resonate becoming rites of passage. The artist returned to Spain 20 years later to explore these points of resonance. Each performative image or landscape alludes to a particular event he recalls from the journey. Bottles of Piss refers to a derelict house which was filled with bottled urine; Three Quid is the sum the artist raised by selling his watch; 23 is the number of hours spent confined to a cell each day in Gibraltar gaol; Six Inches is the distance the artist's nose was from a human turd upon awakening one morning. The project centres on the rock of Gibraltar, which itself becomes a metaphor for the spiritual realm. Its mysterious openings became irresistible to the artist, drawing him in, as did the person of Jesus Christ. The artist borrows from Caspar David Friedrich and Alberto García Alix to relay the claustrophobia of substance addiction and to express the antithesis of the liberating road trip.