This is what arrived, after the removal of the old bridge, in preparation for the installation of the new one. Its function was to carry liquid concrete from the west bank, which has vehicle access, to the east bank, which doesn’t. So obviously, all I could see was a massive ovipositor laying eggs in our field.

I began by drifting dilute inks onto a primed surface, then pencilling in the shapes. I used dilute water-soluble oils to describe the river banks but something a bit more solid for the river itself which, pointedly, does not reflect the sky. At this point, I had moved well away from reality and looked instead to make a rather more fantastical image. The most substantial and precise element is the telescopic delivery tube which, unfortunately, I didn’t see either extending or retracting but that had a surreal presence about it. Like many mythical or magical forms, it has no reflection.

Ovipositor, 2026. Mixed media on 10x24cm canvas.

Ovipositor

The small, discrete, blue-bodied vehicle rumbles into place, its cargo an object distinctly alien to these parts.

It stops. Another vehicle moves into place as if creating a counterbalance to something.

Then the cargo begins to extend; a silver and white tube arching slowly across the river like a rope ladder, finally arching downwards and stopping when it noses into a trench on the other bank.

The vehicles on the first bank begin pumping materials into it. It deposits the materials, lifts, shifts, deposits again, and again and again and again.

I’m reminded of a dragonfly laying its eggs; the same grace and precision but this creature sufficiently armoured and of such a size that it need fear nothing.

Which begs the question; what is the nature of these eggs and what will emerge?

© Suzanne Conboy-Hill 2026