ABOUT

Lost Lands explores our relationship with folklore and storytelling in the modern world.

I've been creating images for this piece and developing a world and story with the aim of eventually translating it into comic form.

The images explore a future, post-apocalyptic Britain where the land is returning to its pre-industrial state. The Green Man's influence has kicked the plantlife into overdrive and mythical creatures and folk heroes have begun to emerge from the new woodland that it is springing up all over the country.

I've always had a fascination with folklore and history and what these stories and ideas say about the society that created them. Some are cautionary tales such as Jenny Greenteeth, which seems to be a simple warning to unwary children of the dangers of playing near bodies of water, or The Mountains High, a ballad which introduces us to the sly werefox, Reynardine and carries an overt stranger danger message. Others such as the stories of giants like Goram and Vincent in Bristol or Wade on the North Yorkshire Coast attempt to explain certain geographical features in our landscape. There are also descriptions of encounters with Will-o'-The-Wisp, which are rooted in our ancestors' misunderstanding of real phenomena, and both illustrates the fear of the supernatural which governed their lives and highlights our detachment from it today.

Lost Lands is the story of 21st Century Britain, violently thrust back into the dark ages! With no more social media our stories are told around campfires, and with no real way of recording these stories we are free to embellish them so that they can grow into legends.

The action is split between the post-apocalyptic, dragon and giant infested British Isles where a group of survivors search for the resting place of King Arthur and the more recognisable, contemporary England described in the stories of characters we meet along the way.