Two Shores

Time runs downward. The first line is the beginning of your moment, each following line stacks beneath the last, and the bottom of the artwork is the end. It reads like a page rather than an object: Two Shores is looked at the way you read, top to bottom.

Your signature holds the upper half, theirs holds the lower half. They never cross. What happens between them plays out on a single line, in the middle, where the two territories touch.

It is an artwork that rewards standing close. From across the room you see a texture and its shifts in density; at half a metre you see that each line is a distinct instant, and you can follow one particular minute with a fingertip.

Two colours, chosen at checkout. One appears when the heart speeds up, the other when it slows down, and the resting rhythm stays black between them.

On this artwork the colour shows something the other cannot: the moments when both halves change at once. A shared acceleration reads as a bright band crossing the artwork top to bottom, at exactly the same height on both sides.

Each line is one instant, and the number of lines comes from the duration. A short capture gives few lines, wide and spaced, where every second stands out. A long capture gives many, fine and tight, and the artwork becomes a continuous texture rather than a sequence of instants.

On this artwork, duration therefore mostly decides the distance from which the work is looked at. Thirty minutes holds the balance between the two: enough lines to make a material, enough space for one minute to stay identifiable.

You decide that, and nobody else. You press End when the conversation stops.

For those whose bond rests precisely on being two. Two Shores does not manufacture a “we”: it shows two distinct people, in the same frame, during the same half hour.

It is also the artwork that ages best through disagreement. Nothing in it is fused, so nothing in it is lost if the relationship changes shape.

Three formats on fine art paper: 8.5 × 11, 13 × 19 and 17 × 22 inches. The largest serves this artwork particularly well, since every line gains from staying distinct from its neighbour.

The artwork is printed once, with a numbered certificate. Framing and an additional print are optional, printed in the same pass.