Graeme Ryan was born in St. Anne’s on Sea in Lancashire. He taught drama for many years and is the author of several full-length plays for young people, including Heartland, The Name of the Beast, Hope Street and Tracks of the Free. He joined Fire River Poets in 2016 and often MC’s their live events. His first poetry collection Valley of the Kings was published in 2022.
This collaboration, The Dreaming of Hinkley Point, arose from encountering Georgina’s art in an exhibition and seeing the instant connection between her work and a half-completed sequence of poems exploring the ecology and spiritual landscape around Bridgwater Bay, the Quantocks and Hinkley Point. Coleridge used to walk here with Dorothy and William Wordsworth; it is where Lyrical Ballads originated in 1798. The sequence re-imagines him in a 21st Century setting and the book is a conversation between Georgina’s work and the full poem sequence that grew from it. The reading will feature a wide range of Georgina’s paintings as well as Graeme’s poems.
The Dreaming of Hinkley Point is a riveting work of imagination, with the ingenious device of spinning Samuel Coleridge through time in a Somerset landscape familiar to him. As much a detailed visceral song to the natural world, this sequence of poems and paintings is also a poignant exploration of the wonder, awe and dangerous enchantment of technology and its promise of unlimited possibility. The engaging reach of Graeme Ryan’s craft – his assured play with form, register, tone and camera angle – is complemented and intensified by the fluidly-breathing and stunning colour images from artist Georgina King. A visually gorgeous and thought-provoking book. KATIE GRIFFITHS
Graeme Ryan and Georgina King’s epic art-poem The Dreaming of Hinkley Point is clever and memorable, witty and devastating. Its imagination is dazzling. The book is a happening, and every time you revisit it, another door of the imagination opens. Then like a hit of laudanum – you want more.’ MICHELLE DIAZ
GEORGINA KING
Georgina is an award winning artist living in West Somerset. Her art practice is rooted in a deep love for the Somerset Jurassic coastline, a connection that began during childhood holidays, deepened through the completion of her MA project exploring the divided landscape of Hinkley Point and culminated in her moving from London four years ago to become a permanent resident.
Her work explores transitional, often eerie landscapes, in which she immerse herself in an embodied experience of place as it unfolds, through walking, painting, and drawing directly in the environment. Her practice is informed by the natural pigments she collects and the dynamic, human and non-human processes shaping the landscape. She experiments with finding visual equivalents for these processes, resulting in raw, direct responses to the land. This practice has become a healing ritual that raises the potential for re-enchantment and asks whether we can rediscover the sense of sacred in nature and ourselves.
Georgina has exhibited widely and sells her work internationally. Last year she was selected for the prestigious international Wells Open Exhibition and she has been awarded prizes for abstract and landscape painting. Georgina has run wild pigment workshops for the Exmoor Society and her work has featured in their publication. Recently, she participated in the Words in Watchet Festival, creating an art film to accompany poetry specific to Hinkley Point and the Quantock Hills, from where the book The Dreaming of Hinkley Point arose. This year, she is presenting her first solo exhibition, The Sacred Acre, at ACEArts gallery in Somerton.