The coasts of the Avalon Peninsula, on the south-eastern-most point of Newfoundland, are subject to an uncanny and perpetually changing state of weather and light. Island is a response to those changes. While Newfoundland is a huge piece of rock, it is small enough that weather systems simply roll over it, often many times in the span of a day. Occasionally, solid forms do show themselves: birds, boats, pieces of ice. Frequently, the reference point of the horizon is eliminated entirely by fog or low-lying cloud. Having grown up in the relatively consistent climate of Southern Ontario, I am continually amazed at the rate and speed of change in the weather here. That the same piece of sky and ocean can be rendered so differently by light baffles me.

The photographs have all been made from the same location, on a cliff high above the water. From this oblique, aerial view, the water becomes an abstract surface. At a distance, waves become texture and the ocean, like the sky, becomes a medium affected by light. One can read this surface in its changes.

Island speaks both of a specific location and of an anonymous location, or global location, that is, anywhere with a lake- or a sea-coast. It also speaks about time, or the absence thereof. In some cases, when boats or ships appear in the photographs, they provide an anchor in time—a reference point. However, due to their scale within the frame, they quickly become absorbed by the immensity of the ocean and sky and are rendered as indecipherable as passing seagulls. To look at the ocean and sky at this scale, given the lack of apparent temporal and geographic context, reduces our consideration of time and place until we can consider the fundamental elements of water, air, weather, light, and, most importantly, change.