Brighton City Tidal Wave Project

The tidal waves in my images come from reoccurring dreams throughout most of my career as an artist. It is also a very personal technique. By the end of the Twentieth Century tidal waves became reality. Photography was going digital and I created my first colour photo-montage. Brighton City. I went on to create a similar image of Seattle and other Brighton locations.

Then, on Boxing Day 2004, a massive and devastating Tsunami hit South East Asia and parts of the Indian Ocean, plus other disasters alike New Orleans also happened later. Because of this climate change suddenly, a viewer would look at my work in an entirely different way! I had many feelings about the obvious similarities between the images and reality of the number of casualties and the range of thoughts and emotions. I kept thinking these images were supposed to be peaceful, not disastrous! They came to me as serene and calming dreams, not cataclysm and suffering. In 2005 I made my last tidal waves images at Glastonbury Festival where I experienced a real storm had hit us during the night.

Denise Felkin 2006