The Lake (2016-present) is a non-linear, introspective narrative exploring the visceral connection between psyche and place and the role that place plays in forming identity, memory and the perception of time.

The photographs in this series were taken at a lake that has multigenerational significance to the artist’s extended family, a place where, returning each year and repeating the past, as well as performing what it hopes to be the future, the family weaves itself into an overarching, layered narrative. The family cabin, by extension, acts as a hive, housing a collective memory, but The Lake is not a family album, and the lake that appears in its photographs is less a literal place than a metaphorical one.

When a place is revisited, it becomes a touchstone — physically, emotionally, temporally — so the lake in this context is a clock and a well, offering a marker, a meeting place, renewal, rest. The lake appears to be monumental and permanent, but like people, it is never static, so as they come and go, and the lake’s water levels, shorelines and wetlands shift, a dance occurs, during which an internal, subjective, mirror landscape forms.

The lake, like people, is also full of contradictions. Throughout a single day, its colour and texture will change many times as it metamorphoses from a mirror to an orange peel to a chipped plate to a jagged piece of slate. Its water is clear, but deep — it clarifies while it obscures. When its surface freezes, life moves at the bottom. Though nearly imperceptible, tides run deep within it. These quiet, subtle shifts — through which the lake mimics shifting human moods, embodies the mystery of the unconscious mind and answers existential questions — underpin the meaning of The Lake.

Photographs from The Lake have been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art, London, and the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair. A selection from the series will feature in a handmade, limited edition artist’s book.