About Iconic Memory Series ICONIC MEMORY SERIES GERRY KING There are diverse components to inspiration;  a new series springs not from one experience or ideal but is assembled rather as a magnet attracts unrelated iron objects.  I feel an obligation to existing bodies of work, adopting a new direction feels somewhat like abandoning one’s children and vowing love to an unknown orphan.  Eventually the compulsion to start afresh overwhelms the notion of continuing the known direction. The Iconic Memory Series is an encompassing title for several subgroups with a  common concern for the environment and the way in which we perceive it. [Iconic memory is the retention of a visual impression after it has been seen. We all do it; certainly I hold memory of visual experiences for decades, seeking an opportunity to integrate them into works.] A component of this inspiration arose while viewing icebergs and glaciers in Iceland.  Held within the mass of ice are mementos of many years passage across the earth.  Stones and soil form patterns within the translucent blocks teasing the spectator to postulate the circumstances of this inclusion.  They present as dark spots, not visually spectacular but alluding to a time period much longer than a human life, a fragility vulnerable to human disregard. As the planet warms more will be revealed from within the ice and from the land it covers.  What might we discover about the past, what might we ascertain of our future? It is comforting to think of the present as indicative of the past and predictive of the future.  The extent to which it is, warrants debate.  These works stand between the known and the unknown.  Might our perception of that which we see about us be trapped in our assumptions as the scrapings are trapped in the ice? As a child I worked in the early morning delivering milk.  On particularly hot days we would visit the ice-works to replenish the supply.  The blocks of ice appeared as though magic propelled them from the factory chute, large, glistening and painfully cold to touch.  Entrapped in the centre were masses of bubbles, a virtual landscape of white dots.  The memory returned as I contemplated ways of presenting the notion of natural history held within the icebergs The subgroups of this series, Kanmantoo Valley, Barossa Valley, Native Valley, etc are in part inspired by rural districts I often visit.   Some are in the rain shadow of the Adelaide Hills, during summer the grass covered slopes are a harsh dry brown but in winter they are radiant with a resplendent swaying green.  The contrast is so stark that it barely seems possible. These valleys are a short distance from my home on a high rainfall, tall tree covered steep hill.  This difference is startling, illustrating the change wrought upon landscape by availability of water As the series has progressed some have ‘migrated’ to be wall mounted, emerging from the blocks of glass rather as core samples of rock or ice are sliced to reveal content.