Òran na Cloiche was inspired by Hebridean beach wanderings.
Ancient rocks splattered with golden lichen, like splotches of paint that form weird hieroglyphs, shaped in circles and crescents. Delicate veils of shape shifting sand blown across the shore by relentless winds, running like ghosts sprinting to nowhere. A never-ending dance along the shore.
Seaweed washed up on sand, deposited in lines resembling manuscript staves with dried kelp spore sacs, scattered like crotchets and quavers, pushed and pulled backwards and forwards with the tide’s ebb and flow.
I have found a lifetime’s worth of inspiration in the Outer Hebrides, constantly drawn to the quality of light and space on these remote islands. Endeavouring to paint the invisible, this painting has emerged from a collection of work that involved an intense and focused practice, allowing the paint to be alive and to sing.
While painting, I was inspired by the Scottish singer Kathleen MacInnes from South Uist singing Òran na Cloiche, a song that tells the story of Scotland’s Stone of Destiny.
- the artist