From time to time we feature artists and works that we enjoy and align with the experimental and creative parameters of IPCRES.

Craig Wood – Title: Variable (2026)

Materials: Indian Paper, Chinese Ink, English Water, French glass, Time, Quotation by Gaston Bachelard from The Poetics of Space.

Dimensions: 300x140x100mm.

On Saturday the 19th September 2026 our friend Craig Wood came up from South Wales to visit us. He brought with him the components of a work of art that duplicated a piece that was in an exhibition called ‘Lore’ in The Mint House in Pevensey, opening that same evening. The work consisted of a piece of brown sugar paper with a hand-written quotation from Gaston Bachelard’s book ‘The Poetics of Space’ (1957). Craig took the paper, folded it into one of our drinking glasses and half filled it with water from the tap. It was placed on a shelf and left to sit. The original work in Pevensey is a site-specific response to the interiors of the historic Mint House.

Over duration the water is slowly absorbed upwards into the paper, very slowly allowing the ink to run down in the opposite direction or be absorbed by the paper. Environmental conditions and atmospheres influence the process and appearance of the work over time, shaped by elements such as temperature, humidity and light, alongside the particular properties of each piece of paper and the qualities of the ink. From the evening of the 19th this same process was happening simultaneously in Sussex and Yorkshire, thereby involving both places in a synchronous temporal unfolding. The above is a simple explanation of the physical properties of this work. What slowly becomes obvious to the viewer as they leave and return to the work is the relationship between the material properties of the piece and what is written on the paper. There is a correlation between the action of the water on the paper and ink and the ephemeral process the quotation is describing.

In Craig’s own words, “When working towards the exhibition at The Mint House I was fascinated by the changes in the building’s function, the myths both real and invented from the past and the new functions that were being created for its future. My work is inspired by the way imagination is finding appropriate new uses for this space.

I considered how stories, tales and meanings dissolve and reform through time. Embracing this fluidity, I began the process of ‘melting’ hand written text in water and utilised the drinking glass to reference the building’s alehouse history.

The famous quote from Bachelard explores how architecture shelters and allows the imagination. Folklore is ongoing through collective, communal daydreaming.”

Here is the quotation:

The house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.
Thoughts and experience are not the only things that sanction human values.
The values that belong to daydreaming mark humanity in its depths.

– G. Bachelard (1957)

About Craig Wood:

Craig Wood is a British conceptual artist and sculptor known for his site specific art installations and exploration into how context dictates creativity.

Educated at Goldsmiths College, graduating in Fine Art in 1989, Wood’s diverse practice includes sculpture, drawing, text and large scale public work. He has been awarded the Gregory Fellowship in Sculptural Studies at University of Leeds and the DAAD residency in Berlin. He would later have commercial representation through galleries in London, Paris and Turin. His work is in numerous collections including the Tate and the V&A. His extensive career is archived in the publication Craig Wood: Catalogue Raisonné 1987-2018. Until recently, he worked as a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Swansea College of Art.

The group exhibition Lore, curated by Patrick Adam Jones and Peter Fillingham is at The Mint House, Pevensey from 20th September – 17th October 2026.