Domain

‘Domaine is another portmanteau word for which it would be hard to find an English equivalent. ‘country estate’ has inappropriate connotations. ‘Demesne’ fits in some ways but it is a word not commonly in use.

To the characters in the story domaine would be an everyday word suggesting a fairly important private property attached to a manor house or chateau; at the same time it could have the broader, vaguer meaning usually associated with our use of the word ‘domain’. The author in fact does use it repeatedly with less precise, more poetical meaning in mind. With these qualifications a literal, if not exact, translation seems the best solution.’

Notes from the translator, taken from the 1913 novel Le Grandes Meulnes by Alain Fournier

I will always be grateful to artist Yvonne Hindle who recommended that I read the 1913 novel by Alain Fournier Le Grand Meulnes (sometimes titled The Lost Estate) whilst I was an undergraduate fine art student. Thirty years on, it still has the power to resonate with me and motivate a creative response in relation to being, longing and the relentless passage of time.

 The story recalls how the protagonist, an adolescent French boy who is restless in nature, stumbles upon a fête champêtre at a hidden country chateau. There he has an unforgettable experience, which becomes for the reader, a symbol for youthful freedom and our own search for the unobtainable. In a bitter sweet twist, he battles to remember if and how he ever found it in the first place as he strives to return.

 A lifelong fascination with formal gardens and stately homes continues to underpin my practice. These historical spaces exist today as an anachronism- a space to contemplate the past, where time seems suspended within the fabric of the buildings and the temporarily clipped and structured gardens. These are places that invite reflection and offer connectivity with another space and time.

In it’s own way, the act of making images has become an equivalent to the lost domain; a journey through experiencing, remembering, image processing and mark making.