BEAUFORT LONDONFull fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange – Ariels SongBroadly taking its inspiration from The Tempest (in which Shakespeare conjures images of violent weather, shipwrecks and magical islands), the chief theme of ‘Fathom V’ is a phrase gleaned from “Ariel’s Song” within the play‘Sea-Change’, which we now have come to understand as ‘a transformation’ or ‘metamorphosis’ first appeared in the play and has now passed into common usage. The eternally changing state of the sea – in constant flux between calm and wild – is our departure point here, explored though the use of seemingly contradictory raw materials in ‘overdosed’ concentrations: Salt meets earth, sparkling herbals blend with dark mosses, bright floral notes meet intense dark spices and pepperBy contrasting the above and below, light and shade, we imagine the shifting state of the sea: its intensity – the allure of its dark depths
