Statement
The recent paintings have evolved since 2009 from many hours of 'stolen' studio time, half an hour here or two hours there. Around the family madness. Many of the pieces are intensely worked and re-worked. Some were started in Skye during the Residency at Sabhal mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic College. Other works came about from a direct study visit to a specific place and came about much more directly. After many years of drawing these pieces are all paint driven and referenced from digital images. Within the pieces there are constant questions. Where are we? Is it beautiful here? Is this how it is. Will the sun come out? My interest has grown in where or what we percieve as 'the subject matter'. But also the contrast of the perception of 'Highland' and 'Lowland'. Potentially confusing when many of us live between the two.
After time in Iceland and Faroe the palette changed forever, there was an awakening, it was here, like a distant cousin, but never acknowledged. After visiting those countries I could see in a different way, more European and assimilated, different yet familiar. Provincial yet worldly. I recommend leaving Scotland by travelling north, it is enlightening and you bring that home. In the subject matter of the work there are many points of departure and arrival, often there are places at the end of the road, or maybe the beginning? Often there is cultural reference, the original names are re-instated. Àrd Rosain is Ardrossan. Carraig Alasdair is Ailsa Craig where Sweeney from at Swim-two-Birds landed and spent six weeks: 'a hard station'. Fast forward in time and see a terminus for a vital bus route in a valley town, a light on the horizon in a harbour, a street lamp in a peripheral scheme, all references to community and contemporary life.
