David Bridgeman

The Road Not Taken was a reflection on choices made (or not) in life. It surveyed a landscape that binds the worlds of the past and present — of the Caribbean and Britain — and attempted to create an emotional and expressive view of a world as seen by both child and adult.

The exhibition was in two parts. The first was an exploration of the artist’s home county of Oxfordshire, England, in painting, drawing, and print. Using oils, charcoal, and oil pastels the artist sought to depict a view that, over time, has become inextricably linked with his home of more than 30 years in the Cayman Islands.  It contained an iconic landmark, the Wittenham Clumps: a small group of trees atop an ancient mound which featured prominently in the artist’s youth.

The exhibition then led into an enclosed installation of 23 light tubes. The translucent plastic material called Lexan was painted on one side and drawn on the other with pen and ink. The tubes surrounded a central tree — the Poem Tree, containing the poem by Robert Frost which lent the exhibition its name — and were illuminated within to show a number of markings and symbols depicting red birch tree bark, ironshore, micro-organisms, plants, and views of a changing landscape.

The Irish writer, Colm Tóibín, when talking of the landscapes he loves, refers in his memoirs to a landscape of the soul. He infers that we all have one. He explains, “It’s a place whose contours and resonances are etched into us and haunt us. If we ever become ghosts, these are the places to which we could return.”

David Bridgeman
Artist/Curator