Wicken Fen sounds inspire artwork

Will Kirkup regularly attends the 'Nature Champions', group a community of young people who meet regularly at Wicken Fen to take part in conservation activities, wildlife surveys, and environmental learning. After taking part in the 'Voices of the Fen' workshops, where the group made hydrophones and explored field recording, Will was inspired to continue his creative explorations of the soundscapes of Wicken Fen, so we have invited him to share his work on the website here...

I have always had a connection to the fenland landscape, having grown up here, and as an artist I found myself painting and drawing it constantly, or just admiring its beauty. When the 'Voices of the Fen' Project came to Wicken I was excited to see artists engaging with the landscape in such an innovative and modern way. My body of work was inspired by the sounds recorded from the microphones at the fen. I am primarily a visual artist, but also compose and perform music, so I wanted to find a way to engage with the sound art of the Voices project, whilst bringing my own visual touch to my work.

The idea was to record sounds using the parabolic mic and hydrophone, and create experimental compositions with them, altering the sounds digitally to further distort or enhance the sound world. I later took these recordings and traced the visual soundwaves seen on software, and used these shapes as the basis of the visual composition.

I liked the idea of going directly from musical “composition” to a visual one.

The twelve small artworks are a combination of singular sounds such as “birds twittering”, and “bubbling” as well as other overlaid sounds. I liked being able to record from two inputs, taking in the underwater and parabolic sounds at the same time, and wanted to reflect this in the visual works as well, so some are more experimental combinations.

What has always interested me as a multimedia artist is how I can combine art forms seamlessly. We seem to be living in a time where the boundaries between the arts are blurring, and work no-longer always fits neatly into a category such as “fine art”. I like how the visual works can be displayed alongside their auditory world. I want the viewer to see the direct correlation between them.

I am currently working on much larger versions of these works, and plan to create a series of large paintings in acrylic, around 6 foot by three 3 foot. It would be great to see how this develops, possibly creating an installation-like setting where the viewer can stand within four of these large works, and be immersed by the sounds they accompany. One example in progress is shown below.

Below are Will's Sound recordings that provided the inspiration for the paintings. Will's recordings are also on the Sound Map.