Welcome to my website
I am a printmaker, primarily of Scottish landscapes.
I have been a lifelong lover of the outdoor landscape. I have climbed, walked, camped, skied up and down, kayaked and swam, engaging with and enjoying the landscape in physically active ways.
My artwork is just a continuation of this. I engage with the landscape this time by sitting still, looking, contemplating and finally mark-making- usually watercolour sketches. This behaviour burns the landscape into my brain in a way that taking a photograph cannot. When I return home, I revisit the sketches and transfer the images to collagraph plates and print the landscapes I have experienced. In a very real way I revisit the landscape and remember it; my artwork attaches me to the landscapes like an invisible umbilical cord.
On this website I demonstrate my processes - both in "How I make my art" (above) and by posting up some of my plein aire sketches next to the prints.
By selling my work, I offer others who might not have the time or inclination for making art, the opportunity to revisit their favoured landscapes in their own homes; they share my experience. Landscape art connects us to the landscape, both artist and collector, and in lockdown times this is a small but important avenue of escape.
I also occasionally wander into the area of conceptual art – particularly when I feel strongly about something. During lockdown I had an exhibition in the Waterloo Festival London – Discarded – a refection upon the disproportionate number of BAME frontline staff who had died early on in the pandemic. -See conceptual art
I am currently involved in a collaboration between Edinburgh and Cork Printmakers “The mouth of a shark” exhibitions – a response to Warsan Shires poem “Home” about refuges. The Cork exhibition is currently postponed (covid).
I am a printmaker, primarily of Scottish landscapes.
I have been a lifelong lover of the outdoor landscape. I have climbed, walked, camped, skied up and down, kayaked and swam, engaging with and enjoying the landscape in physically active ways.
My artwork is just a continuation of this. I engage with the landscape this time by sitting still, looking, contemplating and finally mark-making- usually watercolour sketches. This behaviour burns the landscape into my brain in a way that taking a photograph cannot. When I return home, I revisit the sketches and transfer the images to collagraph plates and print the landscapes I have experienced. In a very real way I revisit the landscape and remember it; my artwork attaches me to the landscapes like an invisible umbilical cord.
On this website I demonstrate my processes - both in "How I make my art" (above) and by posting up some of my plein aire sketches next to the prints.
By selling my work, I offer others who might not have the time or inclination for making art, the opportunity to revisit their favoured landscapes in their own homes; they share my experience. Landscape art connects us to the landscape, both artist and collector, and in lockdown times this is a small but important avenue of escape.
I also occasionally wander into the area of conceptual art – particularly when I feel strongly about something. During lockdown I had an exhibition in the Waterloo Festival London – Discarded – a refection upon the disproportionate number of BAME frontline staff who had died early on in the pandemic. -See conceptual art
I am currently involved in a collaboration between Edinburgh and Cork Printmakers “The mouth of a shark” exhibitions – a response to Warsan Shires poem “Home” about refuges. The Cork exhibition is currently postponed (covid).