Chris Hurford’s work looks the fragility and precariousness of our existence in the world. Ceramic projects have embraced lives ignored or disregarded by others, bringing them to greater prominence, often using insects and other small and overlooked creatures and forms as a means of conveying deeper feelings.
A change of personal circumstances has given time and space to try other media. Photographing abandoned buildings, often covered in graffiti, led to using spray paint to express her own ideas. Large scale works record feelings from spring walks in the moist Celtic rainforests of Taynish and Crinan in Argyll and also Borrowdale in the Lake District. Moss, lichens and fungi cover the trees in these peaceful woods; many fallen trees live on and those that decay add to the richness of the soil.
Biography
After graduating in 2007 with a ceramics degree, Chris moved from London to Penrith, Cumbria, and has shown work, mainly large installations, throughout the country. Responding to the history or location of a place or building, these sites have included stately homes, places of worship, a cathedral, cotton mills, old gaols and increasingly outdoors on hillsides, by tarns, old forts and in woodlands.
A lifetime interest in photography has led to several photography exhibitions. Recently Chris has taken groups out sketching around Eden in Cumbria and has also worked for a couple of years in an old wood pasture in the north Pennines drawing and recording to exhibit at nearby RSPB Geltsdale.
