Constantine is a film maker and artist.

I had quality time (across 2 weeks) and studio space (primarily using the upstairs of the house) to reflect on a book making project about the community of Grenfell before the fire. This involved reading through transcripts from community witness statements and working with pre-prepared large scale drawings. I had also planned to make sample pages for the book with collage/layering of image and text. Instead I created two large scale pastel images and filled a sketchbook with drawings.

The first drawing I made was about me and my identity as an artist at Brisons Veor. I reimagined the old tin mine chimney flowing down and through me, reverse engineered to give fresh air and hope leading to a new future. Living in this wonderful remote house/studio sited in-between the cliffs edge and the Atlantic swells, opened up a new chain of feeling. I felt at home away from a troubled home.

I also hadn’t anticipated the hypnotic views and the call of nature. I spent a lot of time with my camcorder recording the passing of clouds, waves and the birds, especially gannets dive bombing for fish at the end of my telephoto range. There was also a full moon that I photographed and sketched during the night and also documented the aftermath of Storm Ciara.

Every morning I walked up the cliff past the National Coastwatch Lookout Station. I filmed a short interview with Station Manager, Richard Saynor, about how they keep a visual watch along UK shores. I was touched by the role of these volunteers who support emergency services on safety around this stretch of the coast.

As an artist based in North Kensington, London, I’ve been working with communities impacted by the Grenfell Tower Fire. I knew that bereaved and surviving families from the tragedy came to Cornwall for holidays. But on a day trip to Mousehall, I was pleasantly surprised by a road sign for Grenfell Street that had a green heart which is the emblem of the Grenfell community. And I contacted Esme Page who runs Cornwall Hugs, a charity, that provides the holidays for the Grenfell Community. She already lived through the Penlee lifeboat disaster when 16 people died in 1981. And in response to the tragedy at Grenfell, she campaigned to get the road sign with a heart attached to the wall of a building . This small section of a road near the harbour in Mousehall was always called Grenfell Street but had never been sign posted.

I had not expected to find these connections between Cornwall and North Kensington. And another discovery was forthcoming. When I visited the lovely church in St Just, I saw a maritime flag from the battleship Revenge that took part in WW1 had been presented to the church by Captain Russell Grenfell. He came from a long line of a Cornish family who originated from St Just and over successive centuries became rich and influential. Another descendant, Francis Wallace Grenfell, was a senior army officer who led British soldiers against the Zulu tribes and also took part in the invasion and colonisation of Egypt in 1882. When he died in 1925, he was considered a war hero and a small back road in North Kensington was named after him. Grenfell Tower takes its name after a former colonial soldier. Many of the victims of the fire were from former British Colonies.

All these historical elements are fused with burning contemporary issues in my second large scale drawing. This shows the two Grenfell Streets, one in North Kensington and the other in Mousehall intersecting at a point of tension and violence. It was being sketched during the height of Storm Ciara and the disturbing events unfolding in the Middle East. I have depicted Francis Wallace Grenfell astride a ship firing cannon balls across the landscapes of North Kensington, Cornwall and the Gaza Strip.

I improvise as a process of self-discovery and the art work made at Brisons Veor evolved in a fluid and urgent manner with the ever changing sky and the pounding of the waves. I found inspiration and renewed purpose even as my drawings reflected on the Grenfell Tower fire and the Israeli-Palestinan conflict.