UP TO YOUR NECK IN MUD

UP TO YOUR NECK IN MUD is an online photographic exhibition by Holly Birtles including images taken from an opera performance based on the Mesolithic findings of the submerged landscape - Doggerland. Doggerland is an area of land that has been submerged beneath the North Sea, cutting off the UK from the European Mainland. Archaeologists suggest this was due to rising sea levels and a tsunami around 6200 BCE. Findings such as: bones of woolly mammoths and reindeer, hunting artefacts and human burials have been dragged up from the North sea over many decades, along with sightings of tree stumps signifying submerged and lost forests. Dogger tree stumps have been found in Purfleet, Essex and Cromer, Norfolk. The work in show presents backstage and rehearsal instances whereby members of the cast contemplate and practice their role as specific elements or proposed happenings. Elaborate props are made which represent the last wave, the Dogger mounds, the shifting ice and Mesolithic huts. Selected images depict teleport scenes. Teleportation and fragmentation of limbs presents a dual existence from rehearsal to mud. 

Click here for the exhibition

Watch the artist interview here

More recently a conceptually linked video was produced after solo show ‘up to your neck in mud’ by at xxijrahii Gallery in Deptford went from physical to virtual in October 2020. Singer Milly Blue and Holly Birtles worked together responding to key themes - teleportation into the submerged landscape Doggerland.

Watch here

Up to your neck in mud is closely linked to photographic project ‘C1 Monsters’. C1 monsters refers to the C1 imray map which charts The Thames Estuary From Tilbury, Essex to Orfordness, Suffolk. The project consists of a journey, recording key estuary points to both personal history and areas of visual intrigue. Utilising props produced and documented performances by artist/singer Natalia Kieniewicz, the imagery is obscured and transformed into visceral monsters through photographic techniques, post-production manipulations, 3D scans and layered sketches. The surface texture, shapes and design of the props are informed by archaeological research linked to historical findings associated with ever-changing construction, erosion and transformation throughout selected locations on the Thames Estuary. The props function as ‘wearable environments’ which link to the specific locations researched. Monsters vary in terms of location; the grotesque, humorous and bizarre these are reoccurring styles in which depict a symbolic tactile presence of the space visited.

22 May 19:30 – Q&A with curator Tonya Wechsler including performances by Milly Blue and Natalia Kieniewicz and comments from Ema O'Donovan director of Xxirahii.  

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About the artist

In her work, Holly Birtles combines photography with collage, 3D imagery, painting and sculpture to create expressionist and abstract images. Birtles initiates performances in which stage performers and fellow artists pose with hand drawn props while repeatedly reciting and singing subject specific texts generated from collaborations with writers and linked research. The work integrates performances and props responding to historical myths, facts and experiences based on the selected locations in the state of environmental and physical change, including subsequent lost and submerged landscapes.

www.hollybirtles.com