Viewing Room
Welcome to the Castle Gallery Viewing Rooms where you will find highlights from our exhibitions - past and present - focussing on key works, inspirational ideas and telling the stories behind the show. Best viewed on a desktop browser.
KEVIN DAGG & JONATHAN SHEARER
6th - 28th March 2026
'A LIFE WITH TREES'
Paintings, drawings and woodcarvings offering a shared yet distinct response to a life lived with trees.
'A LIFE WITH TREES'
Paintings, drawings and woodcarvings offering a shared yet distinct response to a life lived with trees.
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Jonathan Shearer - Birch Overlooking Migdale, oil on canvas, 30.5 x 25.5cm
A Life with Trees brings together two long-time artist friends—a sculptor and a painter—who first met at art school and have spent years seeking out fragments of Scotland’s ancient woodland. Meeting each spring and autumn, they work en plein air trying to capture what they experience through drawing and painting in a way that also expresses a sense of their deep connection to trees. |
Jonathan Shearer - Ancient Birch Tree, Migdale, oil on canvas, 51 x 61cm
Kevin Dagg - Mature Rowan, Migdale, oil pastel on recycled marquee canvas, 73 x 38.5cm - Weathered Ash, Bridlebank, oil pastel on recycled marquee canvas, 59 x 37cm
Their works reflect an evolving understanding of trees not as solitary forms, but as interconnected beings — communicating, cooperating, and hosting rich worlds of lichens, epiphytes, and liverworts. Through colour, texture, and sculptural presence, the artists explore the play of light on trunk and canopy, and the quiet vitality of woodland life.
Jonathan Shearer - Mags Wood, oil on canvas, 46 x 152cm
They also work independently to draw and paint the trees they know, observing the seasonal changes on familiar forms and local companions. Back in the studio more involved paintings are developed from sketches and figurative sculptures are created through the slow meditative process of woodcarving. Working quickly the paintings and drawings capture gesture and movement, and the sense of mark making is paralleled in the surface texture of the sculptures.
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Kevin Dagg - Eco Warrior
Kevin Dagg was previously a lecturer in sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art and is now in the process of building an EcoArtHut, an off-grid cabin in a private woodland in Fife. He feels a deep-rooted connection to the wood.
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He says:
“Much of my carving begins with newspaper photographs: a momentary expression or posture caught by a camera lens that lingers long enough to stir something in me. Through carving, I attempt to make these images tangible again, to re-inhabit them in search of their humanity. Beginning with forceful, gestural cuts, the carving process gradually transitions into a slower, more deliberate mode of making, in which the surface is shaped with increasing sensitivity. As the work progresses, the form comes into focus through the careful removal of wood. The final sculptures retain the history of this struggle, their surfaces animated by shifting light and by translucent CMYK inks that mirror the original digital source.”
“Much of my carving begins with newspaper photographs: a momentary expression or posture caught by a camera lens that lingers long enough to stir something in me. Through carving, I attempt to make these images tangible again, to re-inhabit them in search of their humanity. Beginning with forceful, gestural cuts, the carving process gradually transitions into a slower, more deliberate mode of making, in which the surface is shaped with increasing sensitivity. As the work progresses, the form comes into focus through the careful removal of wood. The final sculptures retain the history of this struggle, their surfaces animated by shifting light and by translucent CMYK inks that mirror the original digital source.”
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Kevin Dagg - The Filmmaker, Scots pine from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
The Filmmaker is carved from 'Scots Pine' and came from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh as subsidiary part of the After the Storm project.
“I recently left my college lecturing job to follow a long-held dream of building an off-grid cabin in the woods. During the week I live in the forest, spending my days outdoors among the trees, returning on weekends to family and civilisation. This immersion has led to a parallel drawing practice that seeks to capture the subtle transformations of the landscape — how colour shifts with the light to reveal and obscure form. The practice offers a space for silence and reflection, a moment to breathe the air of the trees and slowly reconnect. As I imagine the vast network of communication happening below ground and through the air, I find myself thinking about their interconnectedness and where I fit within it. These drawings have become a counterpoint to the carvings, another way of processing and decompressing as I try to make sense of life. Together, the sculptures and drawings invite the viewer to pause, reconnect with a quieter pulse of life, and share in my connection to the trees.” |
Kevin Dagg - Reaching for the Light
Kevin Dagg - Burr Elm Reaching, Crammond, oil pencil on recycled marquee canvas, 59 x 59cm - Sentinel Pine, Bridlebank. pencil and ink on paper, 80.5 x 59.5cm
Jonathan Shearer - Selection of Tree Portraits, oil on canvas, 21 x 15cm each
Through this immersive experience Jonathan has come to better appreciate the life of the trees through the seasons. 2025 was a ‘mast year’, that is one in which there is an abundance of fruit on the trees – beechnuts, acorns, samaras, hazelnuts, catkins, cones, ash keys and rowan berries – a feast for the birds, insects, squirrels and other animals.
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Jonathan Shearer - Old Man of Achility, oil on canvas, 100 x 120cm
Jonathan paints en plein air and has created at least one tree painting almost every day of the year for the last year. He works with easily portable canvases measuring 21 x 15cm and a small but carefully chosen palette of colours. His sketchbooks are crammed full of observations in pastels, which, together with the canvases create a kind of arboreal diary for 2025-2026. Colour and light are supremely important to Jonathan as an artist, and it is by acute observation of these features in the woods that he is able to paint true depictions of these wonderful trees. Accompanying these smaller paintings will be larger tree paintings and monochrome drawings.
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Jonathan Shearer - Old Man of Achility, charcoal on paper, 74 x 105cm
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