Donkeys Years

A collection of seaside postcards spilling from a letterbox onto the exhibition floor. Messages on the postcards were sent to myself back in 2020, while the images were retroactively completed in 2024.

Acrylic and embroidery thread on card and MDF.

While I think this piece had the ingredients of something interesting, unfortunately the execution ultimately let it down, and I felt bad exhibiting the work at the time. The drawings were rushed as I struggled to meet the exhibition deadline, and beyond the first couple of pieces I lost interest and began to make the work only for the sake of not pulling out of the exhibition - as I hadn't shown anything in a while and felt it was important to try and "get back out there".

Looking back at the work I dislike it less. It got me making something in a difficult period where I'd otherwise ceased creative production entirely. Some of the drawings are silly and fun, drawing on a naive seaside comic style, while others are more meditative, focusing on the donkeys' form and the sea as a reflective place - in conversation with the emotionally reflective text written by my former self. I like the idea of collaborating with a past me, sending postcards across time as well as space. I don't mind the presentation of the work spilling out of the postbox - although the actual postbox I chose looks a bit cheap and plasticy (because it was) and could've done with bristles. The documentation suffers from the warm low lighting in the gallery - which didn't really suit the work and made it hard to photograph.

I think I could re-approach this piece if I wanted to spend more time on the imagery - which is the part of postcards that has always interested me the least. I like the messages, the act of sending a little personalised thing which is physically carried through space, the relation to holidays - specifically seaside holidays - precious pockets of timelessness and escape from one's normal life. If I relate it specifically to Scarborough / Filey and childhood maybe it'd interest me properly. It needs more attention that I don't currently have the bandwidth to give it.

Donkeys Years