Field of Vision

Field of Vision was born out of a shared passion for walking.

Two artists, two countries, two different ways of seeing.

In September 2010 Martha Oatway and Tracy Hill began walking in Lancashire where they undertook 5 journeys around Preston. In April 2011 they travelled to Washington DC to complete a further 5 walks in Martha’s homeland.

The geology of place reveals worlds, which we have never known yet they are worlds to which we are inextricably linked.  The hidden structure of places often determines how we live now and how communities have been shaped over centuries.  Communities will change how they use the land but past history is never completely hidden.  Geology maps and historical maps hold many stories; places of interest were once marked on maps when roads and urban landscape were not the primary elements.  Before the use of satellite navigation and aerial photography cartography was an art, map making was something that combined knowledge and stories of places, shared memory of place.

The process of printing in this work responds directly to the nature of the subject.  Its nature of layering and of building surfaces resonates with the years of history within our communities creating a natural palimpsest.