Caravanserai

As installed at Towner Gallery, East Sussex Open 2011

Sister Wendy's I&II (private collection)

Marion's I&II

The Gamekeeper's Retreat I&II

Dungeness I&II (private collection)

Rudi's I&II

A Welsh Poet Remembers I&II (private collection)

The Sound Recordist's I&II

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 ‘Caravanserai’ is a traditional name for an inn or place of rest for journeying caravans. This series of small paintings are united by a particular cultural appeal, forming a series of imperfect commemorative pieces. Each half differs slightly from the other; a detail changed: occupied/unoccupied; a different day; an object left on view. Some of the caravans are real; some fictional; most started with a photograph or film still. The initial stimulus was a photograph of a dweller on the edge of society – the caravan home of nun and art lover, Sister Wendy Beckett. In one half of the diptych the door is ajar; in the other, the door is closed. The caravan of trapeze artist, Marion, from the film Wings of Desire, followed and the series grew. While hinting at the dweller within, the paintings offer limited information to the viewer, merely suggesting ungraspable, individual narratives.