Chris Otley: Kittiwake, Inner Farne

About the artist

Chris Otley has an ongoing interest on the landscapes, structures, flora and fauna of the coast. Beaches and coastlines can be understood as being at the heart of ideas of nationality and community, whether they welcome or guard against incomers.

In an ongoing series of etchings with aquatint, he has drawn quiet comparison between the refuge shelters found on the liminal tidal causeway of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, Northumberland (where he grew up), and the 'adjacent' beaches of Denmark, littered with abandoned Nazi-era bunkers, their brutal hulks right alongside cheery vernacular summer-houses. He recently spent time shadowing National Trust rangers working on the Farne Islands, where they monitor an internationally important colony of seabirds. 

Otley graduated from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2006, with an MA in History of Art. He has regularly exhibited in both independently and in group exhibitions. Recent highlights include his solo show ‘Coast’ at Magdalen Road Studios, Oxford; Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair; the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE); The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition; the Bainbridge Open; and the Society of Graphic Fine Arts at the Mall Gallery.

He has been awarded residencies at Cill Rialaig, County Kerry and Outlandia, Glen Nevis, organised by London Fieldworks and the Nevis Landscape Partnership.