I grew up in a coastal region of Scotland that was part rural idyll and part coal mining and heavy industry. As a result of living with these contrasts, my art is concerned with the environments we live in: how we shape them and how they shape us. Known for my colourful landscape painting and for my inspiring art workshops, I also work with digital media, audio and assemblage. I’m co-author of two books on environmental accessibility; and have undertaken several large-scale public art projects in the UK and Australia. I live and work on Wadawurrung Country in Australia.
You can find me on Instagram or, if you prefer a more relaxed approach free from adverts, bots, trolls and political mayhem, you can sign up to my email list. You might get half a dozen emails a year if you’re lucky, and you’ll also get advanced (as in, before it goes on social media) notice of exhibitions, open studios, workshops and new collections.
Landscapes of Belonging
In February I’m starting a painting project that I hope will help me unpack my sense of identity as a migrant to Australia from Scotland.
I’ll be shutting down my social media until March. The schedule of posting and responding, and the high frequency dopamine hits don’t fit well with the slow, focused, “Nan-style” experience of place. So this is the place to see what’s going on.
I’m looking forward to it, and I’m deep into the preparation stage. This is a good place to thank Larissa and the team at Mont Adventure Equipment for their support and faith in the project.
This year-long project comprises a two-month period of immersive painting and solo wild camping across two landscapes that have shaped my identity: one month in the Scottish Highlands where I grew up; and one month in the Australian outback not far from where I now live. From the work made through slow engagement with these landscapes, I will create a series of paintings that interrogate themes of identity and belonging.
My work has always been about the memory of landscape. Central to this project is the Gaelic concept of cianalas – a form of nostalgia or homesickness that is about place, time, memory, and a sense of irretrievable loss. As a migrant living in Australia, I experience cianalas as a more or less constant undercurrent: a longing for the Scottish Highlands that I know is shaped as much by imagination and memory as by physical geography. This project will explore how that longing shifts when I return to the Highlands, and how it reconfigures itself when experienced from within the radically different environment of the Australian outback. Read more…
Acknowledgment of Traditional Owners
I acknowledge the Wadawurrung and Dja Dja Wurrung people, Traditional Owners of the land on which I live and work, and I pay my respects to their Ancestors and Elders, past and present.
art about place 