Oh, Peter Greenaway, how I adore thee...

Peter Greenaway, painter, film maker, performer, installationist and welsh. His influence has become apparent in my filmwork since watching a collection of his early short films in the second year of my course. His use of lists, narration and everyday themes/scenes (although some maybe closer to his theatrical fascination - 'The Draughtman's Contract,' 'The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover,' etc.) examplify his transition from painting to moving image. There is no doubt that as an art student I have been brought along the parameters of education to follow the 2D form of art and, having given the chance and option on my university course, applied my painting/drawing knowledge to the moving image in my transition from 2D work to the medium of new media. Greenaway has continued to work with painting and drawing, even incorporating his images into his early film work (e.g. 'A Walk Through H,' 1978) There's no earthly way of knowing Which direction we are going There's no knowing where we're rowing Or which way the river's flowing Not a speck of light is showing So the danger must be growing Are the fires of Hell a–glowing Is the grisly reaper mowing Yes, the danger must be growing For the rowers keep on rowing And they're certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing. 'The Rowing Song' by Roald Dahl Inspired by Peter Greenaway's Water Wrackets this short film was an editing experiment to see if I could create a sense of building water swirling across the screen. Water has been a recurring theme to all my previous film work, with the opening quote that flashes onto the screen a previously used Roald Dahl poem in Robinson in Cardiff. The forever flowing and never ending qualities of the course of water in this world pose endless possibilities that are constant and yet completely changeable. The many paths water can take and its power to surge through anything that stands in its way are qualities that I believe some of us have and apply to our lives. I am not an Aquarius (although I'm sometimes on the cusp of Capricorn and this water sign) but I would like to think I can apply these virtues to my film work as well as my life. The constant and the endless; the banal and the beautiful.

Flow from Lucy Thompson on Vimeo.