Two of my recent collages, Seatown, Cullen (2026) and Trees, Whitehouse (2024) were recently on show in the Open Exhibition at Nairn Community and Arts Centre, King Street, Nairn. This exhibition was part of the September 2026 Nairn Book and Arts Festival. The organisers put up a varied and interesting exhibition over two floors of the Centre and the festival included an excellent range of cultural events, performances and workshops. I was delighted to read a poem written about my Seatown piece by a participant at one of the workshops.
These collages and mixed media pieces are part of my on-going exploration of coastal villages and towns in North Aberdeenshire and Moray. The sculptural forms and weathered surfaces of the old stone structures and sea-defences are full of history, character and narrative, as are the village streets and houses themselves. Some pieces develop in a more abstract way, while others retain a landscape feel as the buildings and lanes climb up away from the sea to the landscape beyond or lead down to the water’s edge and out to sea.
Three ways: An exhibition of artworks created in response to outside spaces
This exhibition was at the Stables Gallery and Cafe, on the Falkland Estate in Fife, from June- August 2021. Regular walks along the back roads and paths between local villages during the Covid lockdown winter and spring of 2020-21 inspired me to explore the feeling and atmosphere experienced on these journeys, moving through light and dark, the shadows of the trees measuring and obscuring the tracks ahead as I enjoyed the freedom of outside.
