Pete Bousfield, artist and dowser, working on the eastern edge of Fowey Moor, now known as Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.
Each piece of work is site specific in flexible time and space. It is my way of describing the landscape and environment as I see it, not in a traditional way but as a multi-layered construct incorporating the sky, the weather and seasons, the land and geology. Humans have also left their mark on the land over millennia.
Repeated motifs create a visual code that forms a thread that runs through my work.
All of this is informed by the practice of dowsing used to enhance my understanding and awareness of the site being studied.
It is immensely exciting to create and reflect upon this vision of our world.
After initial sketches, I create full scale drawings in graphite, pencil and coloured crayons with notes and ideas for the final piece of work. I use these drawings as a template for layers of fibreboard that are cut out and laminated, then carved and sanded to create the surfaces on which to paint.
The materials used are acrylic paint, crayon, pencil, fibreboard, acrylic sheet, stone and metal.
Exhibitions have included the Theatre Royal, Art Mill and the City Museum in Plymouth; the Poly, Falmouth; the Penwith and Mariners Galleries in St. Ives; the Circle and Mall galleries, London and in Brittany, the Festival Celtique Lorient and Spered Kelt at Carhaix-Plouger.
