Acrylic, plastic item from the beach, paper, on canvas, 50 x 50 cm, 2022

I am aware that the waterlily theme must refer in some way to Monet’s great paintings in the Orangerie in Paris, and his oil sketches too, though I am not thinking of them. the shimmer of light on water, the shivery brush marks and skidding paint are most reminiscent in this one, though my palette is different. Golden lily is scratched into the gold paint at the top, and duilleag-bhaite bhuide, (yellow waterlily) down the side.

Acrylic, charcoal, paper, linen on canvas, 61 x 61 cm, 2022

The Lochan of the Green Corrie, or Lochan à Choire Ghuirm, which rather sadly, from being a remote and undiscoverable lochan (Norman MacCaig’s final request to Andrew Greig was to go and fish in this mysterious and hard to get at place) high up in Assynt, seems to have become a popular spot to fish in. It’s quite present on the internet, possibly due to Andrew Greig’s book, At the Loch of the Green Corrie. We walked part of the way to it, though our aim was the waterfall lower down. (and we didn’t even get to that). I doodled a fish into the paint with my palette knife.

Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 61 x 61 cm, 2022

Words scratched into the surface of this one are Allt a’ Bàthaich, the name of the burn that flows down from between the two north peaks of Quinag via waterfall after waterfall.. Scots Gaelic meaning the stream of the byre – the flatter patch of grassland under the main ridge of Quinag is called the Corrie of the byre, Choire à Bàthaich, which was a shieling, a summer grazing for cattle, and might be the reason Quinag (Cuineag) is the name of the hill itself, as it means milking pail. That is supposed to refer to its shape, but it could mean literally a place to fill your milkpail.

Acrylic, paper, linen, gold mica flakes on canvas, diptych, 80 x 120 cm, 2022

the shimmer of the gold paint in this one is hard to photograph. I need to have some Gaelic lessons so I know how to pronounce these titles. But it’s all about a place, its view of the Summer Isles, its hopes, the hay harvest, the potato harvest …. in Coigach. (A’ Chòigeach’), meaning the five fields, is derived from the ancient tradition of dividing land into fifths. the five ‘fields’ being Achduart, Achnacarinan, Acheninver, Achnahaird and Achiltibuie. perhaps a bit like Irish “townlands”.

as Tim Winton says in his 2014 essay  ” perhaps it’s you, the viewer, who is changed; something has stuck, something’s going on … a listening gaze. ….. open to the steady yet returning stare of a creation that groans in travail even as it feeds us.”