Occasional Foolishness: The Proximity of Water

Brought up in London alongside the River Thames and by the sea opposite the Isle of Wight in the south of the UK, Daudy is a keen swimmer participating in races across the world and loves the water, writing about water, swimming in it, looking at it, drinking it, even just standing in the rain. the invisible differences in water, different weather, the tides, times of year, times of the day. The menace of water, its perpetual wilderness and filth, the feeling of longing to be a part of that depth that can pull you in.

Inspired by the work of Roni Horn "Still Water (The River Thames For Example" the artist here maps the river in her imagination, her own feelings and in the history of London. She explores her feelings of wanting to throw herself into the water and be finished with it. The water will be her grave and when her Father died during Covid and stipulated that his ashes be thrown away she performed a funeral ritual for him at dawn alongside the River Thames, and later at Sparta in Greece, throwing a stone in to the steep precipice of the valley where the elderly and disabled were encouraged to throw themselves.

Daudy often creates maps out of her feelings and thoughts. Since her diaries were read in 2010 and she destroyed 40 years of diary, then stopped writing a diary, the artist uses her visual work as an artist to express her feelings and interact with the outside world. This work explores the feelings alongside the water as a pedestrian, not swimming, around the time of 2016 when Daudy was desperate about the state of her marriage and could not see a way out. Referring to Herodotus, Roni Horn and cosmigraphic maps of the skies the work is an internal reference map.

Roni Horn at MOMA https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/247/3178