ACHADH A’ GHILLE BHUIDHE (THE FIELD OF THE YELLOW-HAIRED BOY)

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.”