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29 paintings (see supporting portfolio) originally exhibited at Eagle Gallery, London – ‘I Came Here a Stranger', and Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire – 'As a Stranger I Depart'. The two exhibitions were accompanied by a catalogue, 'JAMES FISHER. I came here a stranger, as a stranger I depart', with essays by Martin Holman and James Fisher and 15 colour illustrations, pub Campden Gallery and Eagle Gallery/EMH Arts, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9554046-7-2.

This practice-based research investigated the relationship between the process of making layered images and narratives of walked journeys. Two such journeys – Franz Schubert’s song cycle, ‘Winterreise’, and the autobiographical account of John Clare’s escape from an asylum, ‘Recollections of Journey From Essex’ – were examined and compared through making 34 paintings (29 in 2008; 5 in 2007), a suite of monoprints and a bookwork (all, 2007).

A study of the construction of the two narratives highlighted their layered composition: ‘Winterreise’ is experienced as a synthesis of Wilhelm Müller’s poems and Schubert’s musical setting, whilst the full impact of Clare’s account is appreciated in the context of his poetry and biography. The research began with a bookwork (2007), a visual response to the layering of information observed in the song cycle ‘Winterreise’, and led to formulation of a method of interpreting narratives using Thomas De Quincey’s model of 'The Palimpsest'.

De Quincey identified the effacements, amendments and aggregation of material in a palimpsest manuscript with the absorption of experience. In paintings made to interpret the experience of ‘Winterreise’, abrading layers of a picture surface sought to elicit the compound characteristics of the narrative: it allowed one idea to be seen through another. The fictive identity of the song cycle emerged in a suite of monoprints (2007), through their assembly of layered imagery.

Conversely, Clare’s account is that of an actual journey, physically walked. The research culminated in focusing on the terrain of the two narratives: the metaphorical landscape of ‘Winterreise’ was contrasted with Clare’s more visceral relationship with earth and trees through a series of paintings based on ‘Journey From Essex.’

The research discovered new possibilities in the narratives’ meanings through invention of a visual language to describe both the physical nature of walking and a distinctive sense of place.