As an artist I’m interested in line, pattern and colour found in nature, particularly seascapes and flora. My paintings range from representational to the tipping point into abstraction, painted on location and in my studio. My seascapes are developed from time spent on the northeast coast of Scotland, and my flower paintings from my garden of my home near Turriff through the year.
I grew up on the outskirts of a village that has been subsumed by the city of Cape Town, with a peach orchard over the fence, huge oak trees in the garden, mountains in the distance, strong winds from the southeast in summer and northwest in winter, and miggies that come out at dusk. For 14 years I lived in the north of the Isle of Skye, three hours’ drive from a city, with rose and fuchsia hedges, mountains and islands in the distance, strong winds from any direction, and midges that come out when the wind drops. Then in the spring of 2022 I moved to live amongst the rolling wheatfields and wind turbines of Aberdeenshire, not too far from the coast but sheltered from the cold of the North Sea for a flower garden (and not a midge in sight).
I’m a studio painter and a fair-weather plein-air painter, sketching and painting on location when it’s sunny and in my studio when it’s wild. I enjoy working with oils, watercolour and acrylics. The former because if I’m caught out in a rain shower the painting doesn’t wash away. The latter because they dry fast, enabling me to work quickly, layer upon layer, building my way to a painting. The quick drying-time lends an urgency to the creation process, breathing vitality into the mark making. I like to think that energetically applied paint conveys the fast-changing weather and light conditions in Scotland, while fluid paint allowed to run creates a sense of the frequent rain. It’s a dance between still-wet and dry, deliberate and serendipitous, abstract and representational.
By looking repeatedly at particular locations, and painting the various moods of these, I aim to create layered paintings that contain multiple memories of a location or subject. Paintings not limited to what meets the eye at a finite moment, that tell different stories when you view them from a distance and up close. I thrive on returning to the same subjects time and again as there’s always something else I see or another way I might paint it.
WHERE TO SEE MY AVAILABLE PAINTINGS:
In my studio by arrangement (email me) or depending on where you (and I) am, we could arrange to meet up. Selected prints available at Dandelion Designs Gallery in Stein, Skye.
Exhibitions
2023
Life Lines, online group exhibition with Fife Contemporary
Colours, group exhibition Aberdeen Artists Society
NEOS North East Open Studios
2022
Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
Edinburgh Macmillan Art Show
2019
“Words” group exhibition at Skyworks Gallery
Twitter Art charity exhibition in Edinburgh
Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
2018
“Fish” group exhibition at Skyeworks Gallery
Lochalsh Art Fair
Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
2017
“Colours of Spring” solo exhibition at Inchmore Gallery near Inverness
Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
Gallery6, Newark-on-Trent
2016
“Interlude“: solo exhibition at Skyeworks Gallery
Spring/Summer Exhibition, Inchmore Gallery
Winter exhibition, Inchmore Gallery
Mixed exhibition at Old Pier Gallery, Broadford
Group exhibition at Groam House
Puffin Gallery, Benbecula
Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
Exclusively Highlands at Cawdor Castle,
Living North Christmas in York
Country Living Christmas in Glasgow
2015
Solo exhibition “Flow” at Skyeworks Gallery
Mixed exhibition at Old Pier Gallery, Broadford
Lochalsh Art Fair
Winter Exhibition & CD Collection, Inchmore Gallery
Strath Print Pictorial Arts Charity Calendar
Home from the Hills charity exhibition at Skyeworks Gallery
2014
Solo exhibition “Edges“, Skyeworks Gallery
Lochalsh Art Fair
2013
Solo exhibition “Winding Down”, Skyeworks Gallery
Lochalsh Art Fair
2012
Solo exhibition “Moods of the Minch”, opening exhibition at Skyeworks Gallery
Group exhibition “If You Go Down to the Woods Today” and
“New Artists, New Work” Inchmore Gallery
Lochalsh Art Fair
Strath Print Pictorial Arts Charity Calendar
2011
New Artists, New Work ,Winter Exhibition, Inchmore Gallery
Trees for Life Charity Exhibition, Out of the Blue, Edinburgh
Skye Charity Art Auction, Sligachan Hotel
New Artists, New Work, Inchmore Gallery
Fish Exchange, Atlas Art Skye
The Printmaker’s Proofs, Portree Library
Publications
2019
Never Still (catalogue of work)
Art Workbook: Colour (compilation of worksheets from my workshops)
2018
Think Like an Artist (collection of writing from my blog)
Art Workbook: 365 Word Prompts to Create a Daily Drawing Habit
2017
Catalogue: Moods of the Minch 2
Painter’s Pocket Muse
2016
Exhibition Catalogue: Interlude
2015
Exhibition Catalogue: Flow
Counting Sheep
2014
Exhibition Catalogue: Edges 2014
2013
Exhibition Catalgoue: Winding Down
Catalogue: Sheep Paintings
2012
Exhibition Catalogue: Moods of the Minch
WHEN did I write on Painting for About.com? It was for 12 years, from 2002 to 2014. To read my articles as I wrote them, use WayBackMachine.
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Thank you for a mini vacation. I am in sw Miss. USA. I enjoy your photos and your musings on painting. I have learned from this. I am a goat farmer and want to paint my goats. I have started my learning and saw your sheep painting photo. It grabbed me. Thank you also for sharing your world.
Love your work. Saw it today at the gallery, on our first visit to Skye. Especially like your paintings of the Cuillins,( we walked from Sligachan yesterday)and also the pen & ink sketches.
How wonderful you have created a New Home with a Garden. I imagine the colour inspires you. Enjoying your posts etc. Thank you 🙂