godsbridgeX

In 2014 Hicks was selected along with nine other artists to participate in a project (‘godsbridgeX’) to work with the artist Tania Kovats to explore what outcomes might result from a collective encounter with a particular landscape feature. The artistic response(s) would later be displayed within the context of the Bowes Museum collection. The project involved three distinct meeting points over a period of a year: a collective walk and an encounter with the landscape of ‘God’s Bridge’, a follow up meeting to discuss ideas and progress and, after the completion and installation of the work, a public events day open to invited VIP guests at the Bowes Museum with talks from the artists including Tania Kovats.

Hicks’s response to this project reflected upon the collective encounter and the ‘embodied experience’ of the landscape site, but was also developed in relation to the architecture and collection of the Bowes Museum itself. The resultant large-scale drawing combined elements of eastern and western drawing traditions in the form of a 6m long scroll which referenced the group’s journey. This was sited in the precious metals room, which contains many and various precious objects that reflect eastern and western craftsmanship.

The drawing takes as its starting point a playful narrative constructed from a bringing together of specific and particular factors – shapes derived from actual flotsam observed during a walk, the geographical formation and construction of limestone and the location and particularities of the precious metals room selected to display the work. This drawing continues her exploration of drawing as an investigative tool for redefining the traditions of recording and ‘picturing’ landscape. Subsequently, the drawing was selected to be displayed as part of an exhibition to accompany the first international ‘Drawing Conversations’ symposium held at Coventry University December 2015.