Sophy Rickett, Lightning Tree
Sophy Rickett, Lightning Tree
Lightning Tree
2019
b/w fibre based bromide print UNFRAMED
Image size: 17cmHx23cmW
Print size: 22cmHx28cmW
Edition of 20
+ About the work
Lightning Tree (2019) is a work from Sophy Rickett’s ongoing series The Curious Moaning of Kenfig Burrows.
Lightning Tree depicts an oak tree that stands near the top of Margam Mountain; a sweeping uplands ridge on the south west fringe of the Glamorgan Blaenau in Wales. In the project, Rickett describes a ‘curious moaning’ sound, which, according to legend, could be heard from the top of Margam. The sound came from the sand dunes of Kenfig Burrows, far below and to the west, signifying that a storm was approaching.
Rickett was interested in the idea of the landscape as a giant musical instrument pitted with indents and ravines that plays, echoes, and amplifies the sound; a landscape in dialogue with itself. She imagined the tree at the top of the mountain as a listening post, struck by lightning during one of the storms that the sound had anticipated.
+ About the artist
Sophy Rickett is an artist who works with photography, writing and video installation. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1999, she has had solo exhibitions in numerous galleries and institutions including Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill; Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Chateau de Lichtenberg, France; Arnolfini, Bristol; Museum of the History of Science, Oxford.
Group exhibitions include Baltic Mill, UK; Centre Rhenan d’Art Contemporain, Alsace, France; Galleria Civica, Modena, Italy; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Il Museo di Trento, Italy; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia; Fitzwilliam, Cambridge. Research awards include recent commissions from London’s Cuming Collection and the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. She is the recipient of two AHRC awards (2010, 2012).
Her work is held in many private and public collections including UK Government Art Collection; Pompidou Collection, Paris; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Federal Reserve, Washington; Fondazione Sandretto Rebaudengo, Italy.