‘Darkness visible’ is an exhibition of charcoal and pastel images by Kevin Parker, drawing upon his interest in the flora and landscapes of the English-Scottish border region. The work is borne out of his close relationship with its woodlands and forests and the charcoal residue produced from their wood. The drawings, or ‘inter-views’, translate between what he sees and the invention of images in response to the medium of charcoal and the subjects he deals with.

According to the Nordic and Germanic scholar Francis Gentry crossing the ‘Dark Forest’ signified ‘penetrating the barriers between one world and another’ in Norse tradition. The focus of his work is concerned with traversing borders. The ‘location’ of these borders is sited between the artistic and geographic. Kevin thinks of geographic more in terms of how the poet Seamus Heaney put it in his introduction to Beowulf; something ‘emotional and imaginative', and less a 'clear map-sense of the world.' In ‘Darkness visible’ Kevin attempts to explore the vagaries of borders.