My work seeks to make connections between different phenomena in the world, specifically between:

- Nature and Culture
- Inner and Outer
- Microcosm and Macrocosm

All of my works, over the past 25 years have been concerned with these connections. This is what unites the whole body of work. I do not have a particular style, nor do I prefer one material or process over another, rather I will seek the most appropriate means and material to find, and make explicit, those connections.

To this end I collaborate with scientists and technicians from a broad spectrum of disciplines and technology. This may mean that one exhibition or work outside may look very different to another. Each work starts from zero and breaks new ground. Its starting point is the place and/or the situation. My work therefore is a continuing dialogue with the world, exploring our place in the universe.

From early in my career I have walked and spent time in the so called ‘wild’ places on the planet. This has given me a bedrock of experience from which I continue to draw inspiration for all aspects of my work.

My first long walk was in the Canadian Rockies with Hamish Fulton in 1975. I began to make small interventions in the landscape during these walks: a shelter made from materials to hand as a way of exploring how we dwell in the land; or a cairn built fast as a way of marking a remarkable place at an extraordinary time. Materials from these places would be placed in the rucksack and later made into baskets or small bundles. Works made from these experiences are essentially photographic. These early interventions have taught me how to use simple, local materials which can give rise to large structures, made cheaply and simply with a minimum CO2 footprint. Shelters later became cloud chambers and baskets, woven architectural structures.

Today, when I walk, I tend to leave these landscapes untouched. Instead I use photographs, video, maps, earth pigment and satellite images to make works from the experience, after the event. I may also work with scientists and clinicians to make links to other areas in the microcosm. My two months spent in Antarctica (2006-7) act as a kind of absolute or benchmark, with which to compare and contrast other phenomena.

Like the composer John Cage, I have always been fascinated by fungi. Mushrooms are the great recyclers of our ecosystems. They break down dead matter back into the soils in which we grow our food. The mandala pattern of the gills reminds us of the cycles of the universe. A mushroom can feed you, kill you or cure you.

I first used a mushroom spore print at the centre of the ‘Medicine Wheel’ in 1982 and have continued to collect mushrooms and their spore prints ever since. I now have a library of these prints which have been scanned and stored and which I can use as the basis of further works. Used in conjunction with hand written text in radiating lines mirroring the pattern of the gills or flowing out in more chaotic patterns, I am able to use this juxtaposition of pattern and text to make new connections.

A problem with modern societies is that we see ourselves as separate from nature and therefore at liberty exploit it. The result is that we destroy the very ground of our existence. However, it is obvious that we are nature and that systems in our bodies obey the same laws as systems in the universe. So I have continued to explore this using a number of different media, materials and scales; the largest, Heart of Reeds being several acres. During a residency at Conquest Hospital in Hastings I explored wave patterns in echocardiograms in works on paper, and later incorporated these same patterns into courtyard garden designs for hospitals. Two have so far been built and another should be completed in 2007.

My continuing interest has been systems of flow in the body, notably in the heart, and similar systems in rivers, glaciers and weather patterns on the planet. I have made a number of works from Iceland using satellite images of storms experienced on the ground. In Antarctica scientists have been collecting echo-recordings of the icecap from aircraft and the resulting echo-images are remarkably similar to echocardiograms and give us a unique picture of the last 900,000 years, laid down in layers in the ice. It is my intention to work with this data to make new links.

Chris Drury: Mushrooms|Clouds – Nevada Museum of Art, Reno
Chris Drury -Antarctica: A Heartbeat of the Earth – Beaux Arts, London

Stones and Bundles – Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, London

Adharc - Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Geumgang Nature Art Pre- Biennale, South Korea

Public Collections

Nevada Museum of Art
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
British Museum, London
Contemporary Art Society, London
Arts Council England
Leeds Art Gallery
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
Henry Art Gallery, Faye G. Allen Center for the Visual Arts, University of Washington, Seattle
Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee
Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh
Wellcome Trust, London
Government Art Collection, UK

Art in Health Award – University College, London

Commendation - Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland

Pollock-Krasner Award

Residencies

Artist-in-Residence – Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, California
Artist-in-Residence – Hiram College, Ohio

Modern British Sculpture - Guy Portelli, Schiffer Publishing
Notes sur la Nature - Gilles A Tiberghien, Éditions du Felin
La Nature dans l’art – Photo Poche 99, Delpire, Actes Sud
Kingswood: A Context – installation catalogue, Stour Valley Arts

Defying Gravity: Contemporary Art and Flight – exhibition catalogue, North Carolina Museum Art
Heart of Stone – exhibition catalogue, Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Oriel Mostyn Gallery

Nature, Art, Paysage – Gilles A. Tiberghien, Actes Sud / ENSP