For nearly forty years I have made my work using the same method. By overexposing direct sunlight through a small hand-held lens, images of the sun are burnt onto discarded wood. I work outside on the ground and under the sky. In these solitary, still moments with the wood on my lap, the outer world no longer occupies my mind.

Thoughts are reduced to a minimum and what occurs is a quality of engagement to an indefinable realm of the human spirit.

I know that what is made from this simple, concentrated ritual is held within the work itself. The presence can be re-absorbed through the senses and the eye. A silent non-negotiable realm of human experience; a vibration of the soul’s life. Like many others for thousands of years, I believe that insight can be seen and rekindled through a pragmatic dialogue with material.

Roger Ackling, 2008

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