Looking at Isolation within a context of Identity...

My sheep and cows sketches got me thinking about the fact that as individuals, our identity is quite meaningless and lost when in a crowd of people.  I thought of an image I had started to sketch (and barely captured) some time ago, while stuck on a train during a long commute to London.  I was caught by the anonymity of the people, the fellow commuters, all standing in a silent row.  Their individual identity was unimportant, it was just a fleeting image of humans all burdened with the toils of labour, starting yet another day.  It was this collective identity that I wanted to hold on to.

Anonymous Intersections
[Quick Pencil Sketch inspired by Exploratory Drawing sessions]

I started to explore the concept of this ephemeral view of identity, and the thought of the isolation I felt whilst commuting in earlier times.

One of my passions is to find alternative places of isolation too, and I recalled the image of isolation that I find during my regular trips to Northumberland.  A favoured place is the beach near Embleton and the dramatic view of Dunstanborough Castle, an 'iconic' old ruin of an excellent example of early coastal fortress built during the conversion of the indiginous British population to Christianity through St Cuthbert and St Aiden.  It must have been buzzing at that time but is all but deserted (except for few tourists) in the present day.    This image appears many times in our psychy, and I even spotted it recently superimposed into a BBC children's TV show...

[Photo Image of Dunstanburgh Castle from Embleton Beech]

Simple HB Pencil - Illustrative / Concept Drawing

The thought of isolation together with the very roundly formed boulders found at the Castle end on this beach, lead me to speculate about a possible piece of work that could represent both the qualities of identity and isolation... At low tide, simply by painting a water based human face (with it's own identity) on some of these rocks, then allowing the tide to wash it away, would make a good allegory / metaphor for our own every day images of people that we see come and go, ebb and flo....