Carole McCourt

Staying is my method.

I return to the same places again and again because I believe some things only become visible through time, care and sustained attention. Rather than treating landscape as something to be represented, I build relationships with places, allowing them to shape both the work and the way I make it.

Walking is how I pay attention. Drawing is how I think. Printmaking and photography help me trace relationships that unfold over months and years rather than moments.

My current work centres on a single limestone rock in the North Pennines. By committing to one geological presence over several years, I am asking what becomes possible when an artist stays with one place long enough for it to matter. Rather than searching for new subjects, I allow repeated encounters, changing seasons and the place itself to determine the pace and direction of the work.

I didn’t arrive at this practice by accident.

I trained as a printmaker before spending many years working in data and technology, where I became increasingly aware of systems that measured, categorised and abstracted the world. Returning to art was also a return to slower forms of attention, to looking, making and understanding through direct experience.

Moving to the North Pennines transformed my practice. Living within a remote landscape taught me the value of walking, repetition and staying with places rather than passing through them. Over time, the landscape changed how I worked, encouraging slower ways of looking and making, and a deeper understanding of place as something lived rather than observed from a distance.

Experiences of illness and recovery further reinforced this shift. They changed my relationship with time, endurance and care, reminding me that meaningful processes do not always need to be fast or immediately visible.

These experiences continue to shape a practice built on commitment rather than novelty. I return because I believe relationships with places are formed over time, and that sustained attention can transform both the artist and the work.