JAMIE TEMPLE
Jamie is an artist-printmaker and educator whose practice is rooted in printmaking and woodworking from which he creates architectural and landscape inspired works on paper and site specific installations.
His work draws from a fascination with the built and natural environments we inhabit and transform, taking inspiration from architecture, landscapes and the environment, and experimenting with process and materials.
Recent projects and residencies have seen Jamie exploring themes centred around climate and the environment, our relationship to land and the horizon, understanding our climatological past, and unknown futures that lie ahead.
The sharing of knowledge and skills is also important to Jamie and his creative practice. He regularly delivers workshops and courses across print studios, museums, galleries and art centres in the UK and internationally; recently including the British Council, Barbican Centre, Camden Art Centre, Bow Arts Trust and House 33 in Nigeria.
SHIFTING SANDS, LOST HORIZONS, AND MARRAM’S CURSE
For this project I am researching historic climatological events that, due to centuries of exploitation of the landscape together with extreme weather events amidst a changing climate, led to the disappearance of a number of farms, homes and communities along the North East coast of Scotland.
Scattered along the Moray Firth and Aberdeenshire coastlines there is little to remind us of these disappeared settlements, communities and farms devastated by historic climatological events, remembered for the most part through fragmented legends, myths and ruins. Stories of drifting sand dunes, witches’ curses, environmental disaster and card games with the devil.
The focus of my research is on gaining an understanding of the human activity that contributed to these environmental catastrophes, with a view to developing new ideas and expanding concepts that will inform a body of climatologically engaged work.
I want to find out more about how people explained these events and changes in the climate and landscape over time and how a desire to find explanations and meaning often led to rumours pointing to accusations of curses by witches or the devil.
Having grown up around these places I am interested in how these have become the prevailing stories we remember locally; histories that are inextricably connected to the landscape as it has shifted and been reformed by natural forces and human hands.
During this project I am also continuing to explore and experiment with approaches to making prints, developing on from work made for previous residencies and exhibitions inspired by the environment, climate, materials and process.
I am making sketches and audio and visual recordings from these places, keeping a record of the project while engaging with local residents and historians to deliver workshops and discussions; all of which will inform my research and development of new artworks.
