In Our Element
Clare Blois, Fiona Matheson, Katherine Sutherland & Dot Walker
6th - 28th March
These four Highland artists do not merely ‘copy’ their native landscape and its weather, but have the courage to express themselves as artists. Each artist is individual, tackling their chosen subject matter from a different perspective.
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Clare Blois
Clare Blois is a ‘gestural colourist’ who enjoys moving oil paint around the canvas. Her larger studio paintings may use smaller en plein air oil sketches as their starting point but as she works on the imagery they move away from replicating an actual scene towards a finished painting that is more concerned with colour, movement and composition. She is searching for an honest, painterly response to the landscape that encapsulates her feelings and emotions and sense of enjoyment.
Fiona Matheson
Fiona Matheson’s starting point for her landscape painting is her interest in texture, masking, pattern and design which is embedded in her as a result of her previous career as a textile designer. As an artist, coming from several generations of Highland crofters, her relationship with the landscape is deeply rooted and the resulting paintings capture the essence of the landscape without being too literal.
Katherine Sutherland
Katherine Sutherland took up painting, in a serious fashion, only a few years ago but is already creating exciting and confident paintings. Inspired by the example of the Scottish Colourists, 1900-1930, her oil paintings have strong compositions and brushwork and capture the harmonious balances of colour evident in the beautiful Scottish Highlands that surround her. For this exhibition she will be showing oil and watercolour paintings of Inverewe Gardens and the surrounding landscape, suggesting a ‘sense of place’ from the delicate gardens to the dramatic landscape.
Dot Walker
Dot Walker is always looking to the next project, new subject matter or inspiration, resulting in quite a diverse range of techniques and imagery. She walks most days in the countryside with a sketchbook, sometimes working in oil en plein air but more often working in her studio. For this exhibition she will present some new still lifes and evocative, spiritual imagery from the coast demonstrating her mastery of the traditional use of oil paint on canvas.