Language maps

A detail from "Land and Language" by Chris Drury, resulting from a canoe trip around North Uist in the Hebrides and exhibited there in 2010. "Language and meaning and history are embedded in this now sparsely populated place," says the description of the exhibition.

Drury's mushrooms, too, use words - written rather than printed - to form the visual image. Poison Pie (2000;  82 cm square) consists of words related to the effects of poisonous fungi (see more here).

Other work containing writing is based on the ice sheets of Antarctica, following a visit in 2006-7 - Everything Nothing (88x78cm) consists of handwriting over an inkjet print.

I like the way Drury moves from macrocosm to microcosm, and uses a variety of media. And he works in a variety of places - installing "cloud chambers" here and there, making art in/of Antarctica, dew ponds, carbon sinks, and most recently with the San Bushmen. He operates on the borders of many disciplines, not the least of which is science, making unexpected  connections.

"Usually each new work has to start from zero and it may mean that I end up using a process, medium or material for which I have no prior experience, so I look for experts to help me. My work therefore has no particular style or medium. Its cohesion rests in the connections it makes," he says.