Growing up I was fortunate to spend part of every summer fly-fishing, camping and horseback riding in the mountains. Now, as an adult living in a major metropolitan city it’s a rare treat for me to escape the incessant hum of white noise and endless concrete. Recently, I found myself in a very dark space but there was one perfect organic place that I could retreat to as an antidote. “Grounded” explores that impulse to escape both physically and mentally from the gray and deafening confines of the city with a camera in tow. As I began to revisit the way in which we inhabit the space at the boundaries of land, sea and sky I kept returning to certain images that felt like a balance between the unease and the peace I felt during the hours I spent at the edge of the ocean. The figures in these compositions represent less the individuals in the pictures but an unexplained attraction to the edges of our environment. We all seem drawn to a seashore, the crest of a tall hill, or even the sky, dangerously out of reach. When I find myself in these places, a sense of my own small place within the environment could easily elicit a sense of fear and unease, yet, inexplicably I find a peace not often found in the places over which I control.

About the Artist 

Visit the Kerry Mansfield Artist Page for more about the artist and her work.