Over the years Inhaled Suns have become occasional works. This piece was made over the course of four months while artist in residence at the University of Glamorgan in 1995.

 

During this period I would wake up each day and collect my breath as the sun was rising and then return to this process at the end of the day, as the sun was setting. Through these actions my breath was able to condense, becoming liquid. It was then frozen and stored separately. At the end of the residency and for the exhibition that culminated, the condensed breath was placed onto two steel sheets upon which a rust sun would appear.

In the exhibition space there were two pillars facing each other so two steel sheets were cut to fit - a reflection of the daily course of the sun over the Rhonda Valley where I was living during the residency.

Having recreated this work several times since, I am always moved by each sun's physical quality, suggestive of both cellular and planetary forms. They embody the processes involved in their making, a process that involved a direct communion with the sun. When seen against the surface of steel, they appear suspended like a celestial body in the night sky.