The Scottish islands, notably Orkney have a sort of mythological charm, encouraging preconceptions, maybe from images of a simpler life, or familiar paintings of Scottish islands or even camera work in TV dramas. One of the challenges for artists is to depart from widespread notions and cleave their own way. This is probably assisted by resolutely rooted artistic practices. In Orcadia brings together six established artists, (one with an archaeologist), with recent responses to the sea, land and skies, emerging from a long engagement with Orkney.
Barbara Rae
Barbara Rae uses her distinctive deep colours to evoke a sense of the Yesnaby landscape. Although the colours are not naturalistic, they induce a recognisable feeling of the muffled atmosphere of late daytime as it becomes night. A carborundum print ‘Yesnaby’ shows a field in blues, reds, oranges and yellows to the fore with sea and muted green hills in the rear. In Road to Yesnaby (mixed media) there is more movement, which may speak of the artist’s experience of going along the road. Another slightly darker mixed media work also called Yesnaby is almost the same part of the landscape. It has the name Yesnaby painted in green letters in the foreground as if to remind us of ‘being at’ the place rather than going there.
Victoria Crowe
Victoria Crowe had a residency in Orkney for the Pier Arts Centre, in 2022. She went during the Summer Solstice and returned during the Winter Solstice, to experience different light. The works were shown in Touching the Surface (2024) at The Pier Stromness and also in an earlier RSA exhibition, Elemental (2023).
I always think of Victoria Crowe’s art as being like poetry which touches a moment, evoking wider associations from it. Often with portrayals of liminal times of day, dusk and twilight. However, many of the images in the 2023 exhibition were almost empirical in her recordings of the light and clouds (reminding one of Constable with his study and naming of clouds). Some were sketchbooks, but they departed from earlier works in that even in the oil paintings the colour is less rich. This exhibition shows a lithograph and two oil paintings. The small oil painting OccludedSky (2024) is mainly gritty greys and blues; faithful to the often-cool Orkney colour. However, her large oil painting Low Winter Sun Links Window (2023), with its reflection of a wistful pale-yellow sun setting behind a thorn bush and some wind-tattered plastic, seems more typical of her previous art.
Samantha Clark
Samantha Clark lives in Birsay. She describes her work as being like a meditation on water and time: the natural environment is something we are allied with and connected to in its variations. There are references to human physiological processes such as breathing or the pulse. Her work is the largest body of work. In 4 large works of acrylic on aluminium, there are small forms on the surface, like an irregular net or shapes in water. At first glance, the works look non-figurative, but there is a great deal of movement and detail and a sense of an ascetic engagement with slight changes. Wave, Cloud, Breath (2024) suggests the artist’s breath in the elements; or in Cloud, Moon, Wave (2024) there is a flash of pale moon behind the cerulean and darker blues. The colours are naturalistic and her titles, simple and descriptive.
In 13 smaller paintings on board there are more noticeable contrasts. She often incorporates metals; Taking Flight (2024) is aluminium leaf on board. The use of metal enhances changes in light and recalls the minerals in the land. A pair: Perpetual light (2024) and West (2024) incorporates brass leaf and acrylic mica for a shimmering effect. These two are more orthodox in structure with horizon line, sea, and sky.
Anne Bevan
Anne Bevan was born in Orkney and now works there. She collaborates with a number of disciplines. For example, in her exhibition Walking the Sound 2017, she was part of differing responses for a project Beside the ocean of Time, looking at layers of time. She is interested in environmental change, and ‘deep time’. In Light Erratic (2024) she collaborates with archaeologist Mark Edmonds, who was involved in the Ness of Brodgar excavations. He is interested in landscape, memory and artistic interpretations of archaeological forms. All manner of singular forms is an installation, part of Light Erratic. Its inspiration is labradorite boulders brought to Orkney in the 1900s, suggested here by eight cast plaster rocks in pool-like containers, and a print (also called Light Erratic) which shows a rock placed on the edge of a waterfront. This may suggest movements from other places and human intervention in the land, making us question the manner of our interventions.
Frances Walker
Frances Walker’s etching: Cliff Path was made last year to celebrate her birthday at the impressive age of 94, but it is transposed onto a drawing made in 1981. The viewer looks up the illuminated cliff to the dark sky in the rear, signalling a storm. The eye is led by long natural forms on the surface of the sand and cliffs, and one imagines the cliff path is there now. It’s almost a monochrome etching but there are two posts with reddish brown rope tied around them which draw the eye. This revisiting must have a resonance for memory, and I would have liked to see the 1981 drawing. However, it also has a quiet unassuming quality recalling other more recent prints such as Wild Shore Tiree (2015).
Frances Pelly
Frances Pelly lives on Orkney, she displays 3 artist’s books, a mixed media work, and 4 slate reliefs, which are linked as one work Orkney landscapes: Montgomery’s Barley, Gairsay, Gloup, Floating Field (2024). This hints at archaeology in that she uses natural materials including clays found on the island and in fact she says she was inspired by pigmented stones from excavations at The Ness of Brodgar site. The reliefs are like small paintings of hills or fossils embedded in the earth in cool and warm earthy colours. You get a sense of both the topography, the layers under the earth and the different materials of the land, in a very direct interaction in the landscape.
Like Frances Pelly, all the artists’ works in this small exhibition suggest a landscape in which the artists have been very immersed and engaged in their ways. I would strongly recommend In Orcadia as an exhibition with a lot to it.
The exhibition is taking place at room 7, The Royal Scottish Academy, The Mound, Edinburgh EH2 3EL , from January 25 to March 2, 2025
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