The Water Gave Us Joy is painted onto a discarded bodyboard washed ashore on the Sussex coast, in Saltdean, Brighton. Once an object of play, flotation, and wave-riding, it becomes here a vessel for memory: bright horizons, salt air, movement, freedom, and the uncomplicated happiness of being carried by water.

I am interested in the sea not only as a place of awe, healing, or environmental urgency, but as a place of delight. A place of release, sensation, and aliveness.

The weathered bodyboard retains the marks of use and abandonment, holding a quieter tension between pleasure and responsibility, enjoyment and impact, reminding us that what brings us joy also asks for our care.

Materials:

• Mixed media on discarded body board, washed up on Saltdean beach