The cyanotype process has been an intriguing, indeed obsessive new area which I started to explore while confined indoors during COVID. It captures and makes permanent the eccentricity and unpredictability of patterns of light flowing through glass, clear plastic and other commonplace things, which are transformed into somewhat magical, spectral images. They seem to convey the quiet mystery to be found in everyday things. Doing these is very structured, especially around the length of exposure, the time of day, the geography of the room and the way sunlight enters and moves across it. Transparent objects appear to “flow” into a multitude of new shapes when transformed by the cyanotype process, within the parameters of time, focus and luminosity, and the wonderful encounter between photons of sunlight and the surface of sensitized paper.

These drawings are from fragments of relief carvings which I have seen and admired on Roman Sarcophagi in museums in Italy, France, Germany and Turkey, and the best of which are still impressive-although often damaged-after up to 2,000 years. The extended horizontal compositions are powerfully orchestrated sequences of compression, rhythm, detail, energy and animation. The usually violent subjects are presented in silent, graceful, almost balletic arrangements. They often include incomplete components (such as human and horses’ heads, or fragments of riders astride fragments of horses), transformed into new and more mysterious entities.

I am now increasingly using Sketchfab in place of my own photographs as a source for these drawings. This platform is dynamic and fully three dimensional, enabling me to navigate fluently across the surface of the Sarcophagus from any chosen angle, and to zoom in and clearly reveal any part which I need to see in more detail. This enhances and energises the process of drawing and interpreting this compelling subject matter