The Ghost Boat series are monotype silkscreen prints created from several layers of gestural painting produced during the printing process which allows spontaneous abstract images to evolve. Although similar in form, colour and tone, each print is unique. Creating images in this way is an experimental process and exists somewhere between printing and painting.

I created the Ghost Boat series in  response to the situation of refugees and migrants, desperate people making perilous journeys, fleeing for their lives. These abstract monotypes are imaginings: the feelings and anxiety of crossing the seas with all you possess and holding on to the hope that you will survive. In this instance, I was following the ‘Ghost Boat Investigation’ by journalists Eric Reidy and Bobbie Johnson into the mysterious disappearance in 2014 of a boat carrying 243 Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, mostly women and children. It is incredibly unusual for a boat this size to go missing without leaving a trace.

However, the Ghost Boat’s disappearance was almost completely ignored in the media. Despite knowledge about the incident in Italy, (its intended destination), it took more than a month for any story to appear in the press. There are hundreds of thousands of people travelling this route looking for peace and safety in Europe, but whatever happens — sinking boats, death, double-crossing smugglers — there is always evidence. Not in this case. But there were clues about the Ghost Boat. Odd phone calls, messages that couldn’t be traced, rumours, hints.

Reidy and Johnson’s investigation into the boat’s disappearance started in July 2014, with a team of journalists and investigators working across the region. They also enlisted the help of their followers and readers in an international open crowdsourced online investigation and published their findings in episodes on Medium. Sadly, neither the boat  nor its passengers were ever found. The journalists ended the investigation in 2016.

To find out more about the Ghost Boat Investigation, please click here.