I N T R O

I made the Iona Summer series in July 2018, over three weeks spent camping solo at the north end of the Isle of Iona. My pitch was at Cnoc Oran ( Hill of Song)and lay close to the low rise known as the Angel Hill, or Cnoc nan Aingeal, named in Adomnán’s Life of Columba as the place where the saint was seen among angels. I worked within sight of the western beaches. Colour is the series’ guiding subject: the caster-sugar whiteness of the sand, ancient black rock crusted with barnacles, and the improbable turquoise of the sea, all bathed in the soft light that lends Iona its strange, almost mythic clarity. The elements shaped the work as directly as the setting: living outdoors through the island’s changeable Atlantic weather, I began several paintings on the shore and completed them later in Edinburgh, the summer’s high winds and rain (and a stomach bug) made sustained work on the island almost impossible. The series was made for the Limetree Gallery, Bristol.

P A I N T I N G S

 

B L O G  L I N K S

Day 3 on the Isle of Iona on the west coast of Scotland where I’ll be painting till 30th July. It’s a very patchy connection but I’ll attempt blog posts of paintings in progress while here … Iona Summer 1

It’s interesting living an outdoors life while working and with no resources and very few contacts – a barn would be kind of useful, but in the meantime I’ve set up a storage tent … Iona Summer 2

I’m now back in Edinburgh having realised I’d never get the series finished on time with the weather being so changeable, it was pretty tiring, also some of my paintbrushes and palette knives disintegrated in the damp conditions, I did slightly too! …Iona Summer 3

P L A C E