What is your current practice?

I recently answered this question when applying for a residency, I didn’t get the residency but I did enjoy reflecting and trying to articulate my work. So here is what I wrote:

When you remember a space, does it remember you back? Thousands of travelers navigate Scotland’s vast countryside every year, taking away memories and simultaneously departing a sense of their experience onto the landscape itself. Can you separate the two? I believe Scotland’s landscapes hold these memories, memories created by all those that have walked their paths, my practice looks at painting the landscapes and journeys we take and how to capture such vastness on a small scale.

I hope to capture the essence of these landscapes, and the collective memories they hold to create a piece which allows visitors and explorers alike to take their own slice of Scotland home with them. Our Scottish landscapes are our oldest storytellers, and my work harnesses this power to connect strangers through the stories the landscape holds patiently for them to re-tell.

Since moving to Edinburgh in 2022, I’ve spent many weekends out of the city in reach of more time off the grid. As an artist, instinctively I reach for my sketchbook. Through slowing down to observe and recreate, I experienced the landscape in more detail. Each time I go, I wondered, how does this space make me feel? How many people before me have reflected in this same spot? To think about all the others who have been before and will come, how the spaces can hold so many different meanings to so many different people and collectively connect us.

Through experimenting with scale I discovered the power of the miniature. The size of my paintings encourages you to pause, to really take in all its detail. Through something so small, I transport my audience to a different place and time. A time that was uniquely theirs, but is also collectively ours a personal snapshot shared by so many.