Alexander and Susan have been working together for more than 18 years. They describe themselves as ‘post urban’ artists for the position themselves outside our culture, almost like visitors from the future, with a detached position from which to view our world and our relationship to it. Their studio is Rannoch Moor, a vast wilderness in the heart of Scotland, and much of their work, from planting trees to learning to fly fish, is connected with such definitive examples of place. For example, they have been planting seeds of the original primeval forest on the moor for the past six years – each seed being given its own precise GPS location to create a ‘virtual’ forest.
The Marises may adopt whole landscapes as a space for production, and their medium might be an ‘unclimbed mountain‘, or in the case of Urriellu, a mountain that is a cultural focal point. In Uriel they have created a timeless ‘book of hours’ where the mountain is invited to instruct us in the cyclic nature of existence.