The Gallery
Hawk and HelicopterOsi Rhys Osmond
15 January - 20 March 2011
‘Hawk and Helicopter’ by Carmarthen based artist Osi Rhys Osmond is an account by drawing, painting and text of the artist’s experiences, thoughts and observations, was created while watching and painting the sunset from a high point facing south west, overlooking Carmarthen Bay.
Osmond writes of this area, which is designated by the Countryside Council for Wales as a Special Area of Conservation, as well as housing a military testing ground on its estuary edge;
; “… vast flocks of wading birds, migrants and residents congregate, roost, feed, preen, hunt and breed. Foxes prowl shorelines and rabbits tumble in cliff top warrens. Mad hares strut high fields. Cormorants guano their red roosting rocks a rancid pink. Ravens clank and tumble, blackly. The rivers pour down as the moon drawn tide ebbs and flows. This is the normality of the place. Occasionally, this is disturbed by unexpected sights and strange sounds, for here hawks hunt and sometimes helicopters hover; peregrine falcons and Chinooks appear and disappear, fly, rise, descend, hunt, patrol, attack and retreat. The sudden raucous voice of the Chinook bruises the sky, assaults hearing, the blade’s violent clatter shatters the clear esturine light”
The innocence of coastal land, suddenly becomes something else. This is the hawk’s home and he kills to live. The helicopter comes to rehearse killing for strategic reasons, the land, sea and air lose their virtue, beauty becomes conflated with terror.
