Each - 50 x 70 cm.
Overall – 200 x 280 cm

In July 2003 I went with my friend Phil to Iceland to walk for seven days in the lava deserts of south central Iceland. On the night of 5th July we were hit by a big storm with very strong winds and driving rain. We were staying the night in a mountain hut and remained there all the following day waiting out the storm. The weather forecast predicted a five-hour lull in the late afternoon, before bad weather set in again. We had a four hour walk ahead of us to the next hut, high on a mountain plateau, so when the wind began to abate at around four p.m., we set off. We climbed 2000’ onto a snow covered plateau, with smoking fumeroles, and at this point the weather closed in again, with driving rain and high winds, visibility down to 30 yards.
Phil has a heart condition and the combination of a heavy pack, exhaustion, and being wet through and cold, caused his heart to start to close down. Luckily his doctor had given him two pills for just such an emergency and they saved his life, with the aid of these drugs he was able to make it to the hut, where there was warmth and shelter.
This very nasty near disaster prompted me to find out what this weather pattern looked like from above. So on our return I consulted the web site of a satellite tracking station in Dundee where I was able to look at the whole of this weather pattern on that day and to obtain the images on disk. It is remarkable how similar this weather pattern is to the pattern of the tissue in a cross section of the human heart.
The map superimposed in Photoshop onto the image is the one we used on the walk, and although I had brought some lava dust back with me I didn’t have enough. This was provided by Magnus Palsson and artist from Iceland whose English wife, Frances brought me some lumps of lava when she came to London.

* This work is available for purchase. See works for sale.