Artist Uncovered: Elspeth Lamb RSA

The eight prints by Elspeth Lamb in the AiH Collection span three decades and altogether encapsulate the internationally renowned printmaker’s diverse repertoire of silkscreen, collage, lithograph, screenprinting and papermaking.
The titles March Hare, Miracle Fish and Milagro give us an inkling of Lamb’s predilection for fairy tales and enchantment and this is indeed confirmed unmistakably by the allusion to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the cover image of her website and by the artist’s long blond hair that echoes the famous golden locks. Motifs from Lewis Carroll’s classic novel recur in Lamb’s iconography, not only the hare but also the ubiquitous ellipse, sometime egg, sometime mirror. 

Spinner screenprint, 103x113.8cm

AiH Collection

These references to Alice seem most appropriate when you consider that it is the privilege of artists to cross over two worlds, the mundane and the extraordinary and to take the viewers through the looking glass into the land of dreams. And as in Alice’s story, there is a certain frisson of danger in Lamb’s make-believe art with appellations like ‘chimera’, ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ and ‘cantrip’, the Scots word for magical spell.
Printmaking is steeped in rituals and processes. But for printmakers, the exacting nature of their methods is not limiting but opens up an ever-increasing array of possibilities the more skilled they become.

Milagro lithograph, 125x92cm

AiH Collection

Elspeth Lamb is an expert in her art form which she taught for over twenty years at Edinburgh College of Art, latterly as Head of the Printmaking department. Then in 1999 she left college to embrace a freelance career, a momentous decision that allowed her to divide her time from then on between her own practice and teaching through workshops.
Travels had always been important to her work and she was now able to spend even more time abroad at the invitation of art institutions. Japan held a particular fascination for her and in 2000 she got the opportunity to immerse herself in its culture when she was selected for an international residency programme. She spent ten weeks in the village of Nagasawa and turned the tables on herself by becoming the pupil of master craftsmen to study moku hanga, a water-based method of woodblock printing that produces stunningly vivid and transparent colours. 

March Hare screenprint, 71x41cm

AiH Collection

She returned to Japan two years later to learn traditional papermaking as part of her research for a book she had been commissioned to write which was subsequently published in 2006 under the title Papermaking for Printmakers.  Lamb called upon a number of experts to work with her on this very detailed handbook and in her introduction she explains eloquently the seduction and rationale of papermaking that she describes as “a tactile revolt against the limitations of the flat, one-dimensional print”. 
Physically challenging and time consuming, it is also enormously rewarding because the artists can add to the pulp specially chosen elements that evoke places and emotions through touch and smell as well as visually. The end result is two artworks in one, the paper and the print which complement each other perfectly, layers upon layers.

Miracle Fish screenprint, 70x40cm

AiH Collection

Inspired by her two visits to Japan, Lamb produced in 2006 an artist’s book Nagasawa Cantrips. In this limited edition of ten, the artist has conjured up the best of her skills to bring together traditional and modern printing methods, Western and Eastern thinking and her favourite themes. March Hare and Miracle Fish are two of a few prints that were produced separately and that can be enjoyed today by the patients, staff and visitors of the healthcare setting they enhance.

Martine Foltier Pugh is a freelance writer and visual artist based in Edinburgh

For further information:
http://www.lambbo.macmate.me/Site/Elspeth%20Lamb.html 
http://vimeo.com/15252990 
http://www.endeavor.or.jp/nap/index.html 
Papermaking for Printmakers by Elspeth Lamb, pub. A&C Black, London



And special thanks to Balfour Beatty Investments and Arts & Business Scotland for their financial support, which has enabled Art in Healthcare to produce 18 Artist Uncovered blog posts and accompanying video productions.

Artist Uncovered: Duncan Pettigrew 1973-1993

"Love your art"

In many ways Duncan Pettigrew was a typical adolescent full of youthful enthusiasm and confidence. Art was his passion and although his most productive period only spanned a couple of years, he left behind enough works to fill up several gallery spaces. 

Self-portrait (with hat) oil, 100x76cm 

(aged 16 when at Edinburgh Academy)

image courtesy of J and M Pettigrew

His numerous self-portraits show a young man looking straight at the viewer, not with arrogance but with the assurance that befitted the accomplished draughtsman that he was. The word ‘extraordinary’ comes to mind when describing the extent and range of his talent. John Brown who taught him in fifth and sixth year at Edinburgh Academy in Edinburgh and himself a renowned artist was impressed by his technical ability at such a young age.
The wealth of details in his works reveal to us his sharp observation skills and his delight in putting together carefully conceived and balanced compositions livened up with boldly contrasting light and dark tones for dramatic effect.

Self-portrait (with trophy)  oil, 110x76cm

(aged 17 when at Edinburgh Academy, 

inspired by the award of the Burness Trophy for Painting)

image courtesy of J and M Pettigrew

Duncan may have inherited his aptitude from his artistic parents but his competence was entirely his own and earned through fervent practice. He was constantly drawing and his sketchbooks show how he learnt about the way things connect and relate to one another:  the front door to their house, the large cheese plant sprawling up the banister, the florid wallpaper in a holiday home abroad. 
This fusion of eagerness and talent gave rise to the prodigious pace that defined his working process. His father recalls that in the time it took him to do half a drawing, Duncan would do four or five.

Sack Series No 1 pastel, 53x41cm
(still life in LSA studio)

AiH Collection

He had been accepted by Glasgow School of Art when he was diagnosed with leukaemia. After his first stay in hospital, he surprised everyone by producing seven large self-portraits within a week, each one named after the day it was completed. This series of charcoal drawings shows his keen sense of humour as in Sunday where he drew himself wrapped up in toilet paper, the one thing that was close at hand and in abundant supply. His art became his way of thumbing his nose at his illness.
While in hospital he received a visit from John Bellany who was a friend of his mother from art college. Bellany gave him a large compendium of Picasso’s works with the hand-written dedication “Love your Art”. 
Duncan spent the following year at Leith School of Art (LSA). In this nurturing environment and with renewed strength, he was able to enjoy this most creative time to the full and never wasted one moment. Typically the four studies in the Sack Series currently with Art in Healthcare were executed as a single studio assignment. 

Sack Series no 3 pencil, 53x41cm
(still life in LSA studio)

AiH Collection

LSA principal Philip Archer who taught him, remembers clearly not only his talent but also his strength of character and clarity of thinking beyond his years and of course his sense of humour. He recalls that Duncan worked hard and wanted to be pushed hard but at the same time that he did not take himself too seriously and held on to his achievements lightly. 
In 1994 Philip Archer and the Pettigrew family put together a show to celebrate Duncan’s artworks that filled the walls of LSA. A book entitled Love your Art accompanied the exhibition and helped raise money for the Leukaemia and Bone Marrow Transplant Fund at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. 

Self-portrait (Sunday) charcoal, 130x75cm

image courtesy of J and M Pettigrew

Duncan’s talent and fortitude inspired all those who came across him and this extract from a poem by Dylan Thomas that Philip Archer appended to his foreword to Love your art is a particularly fitting tribute to this remarkable artist:

                                         “Do not go gentle into that goodnight,

                                          Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Martine Foltier Pugh is a freelance writer and visual artist based in Edinburgh

With thanks to Jennifer and Maurice Pettigrew and to Philip Archer.
With thanks to Soosan Danesh for photographing the self-portraits above.

Love your art is available for borrowing from Edinburgh libraries.

Related link
Leith School of Art http://www.leithschoolofart.co.uk/

And special thanks to Balfour Beatty Investments and Arts & Business Scotland for their financial support, which has enabled Art in Healthcare to produce 18 Artist Uncovered blog posts and accompanying video productions.

Artist Uncovered: Paul Martin

Of beeswax and metaphysics

Earlier this year, Art in Healthcare were delighted to welcome in their Collection two paintings by Paul Martin, one of the leading exponents of encaustic art today. In this process the artist mixes pure pigments with melted beeswax over many layers often resulting in dreamlike paintings with a matt and subtle finish.

 Repapering  oil, encaustic,149x180cm

AiH Collection

Encaustic is about experimenting with natural ingredients and can be traced back to antiquity. This suits Paul Martin very well for here is an artist who is profoundly inspired by nature and favours continuity and authenticity over shock of the new.
The two paintings, ‘Repapering’ and ‘The Sculptor in his Studio’ which both date back to the 1980s, are figurative works with similar tones and aesthetics. Their titles evoke ordinary activities but the unrealistic and staged feel of their compositions suggest metaphors instead. They tease the viewers with a myriad of questions.

The Sculptor’s Studio  oil, encaustic,146x192cm

AiH Collection

In Repapering, why is the father’s head out of sight? What is the mother doing in the background? What is the flowery pattern on the ripped wallpaper telling us? Is the child playing with a mirror? Is it a mirror? What is a mirror? 

In The Sculptor’s Studio, what is this broken circle the artist is holding in his right hand? Is it a tool? Is it an allusion to the mirror in the other painting? Are the square and triangular patterns on the floor some mathematical puzzles? Who are the sculpted figures? 

4 , 'Inscapes' series
image courtesy of the artist

By setting these paintings like theatrical tableaux the artist wishes to open up these fundamental questions. And of course there are no right or wrong answers, just wide ranging possibilities. For instance in Repapering, some viewers might see a resemblance between the sculptor and Socrates, the founder of Western philosophy and between the bust being created and Socrates’ ‘spiritual son’, Immanuel Kant. And is it purely coincidental that Socrates is credited with a particular method of enquiry known as Socratic Circles?

Crossing the Yellow River (detail, right panel) oil, encaustic, 215x157cm

image courtesy of the artist

Paul Martin’s disposition for debate was honed through discussions with his tutors and peers first at the Birmingham School of Art, a strong advocate of Abstract Expressionism, and later at the Royal Academy, a calculated choice that brought him back to figurative drawing.  Then teaching came naturally to him as something that “he could not not do” but he kept up his own painting practice in parallel with his teaching career through the years and found that this dual focus benefited both his work and his students.

Song Upon Song Upon Song varnishes, gesso, ink on paper, 201x78x62cm

image courtesy of the artist

The sixty-seven works in his recent exhibition 'When Men and Mountains Meet' at the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh were painted over the last seven years. The style has changed since the 1980s. Now vigorous and expressionist marks fill up large canvasses sometime inhabited by outlined figures whose beautiful faces peer quizzically beyond the canvas. The painted surface is more gritty and organic but it is still sealed with wax which, says Martin, “metaphysically bonds” us all together with nature.

Race oil, encaustic, mixed media

image courtesy of the artist

The artist stresses that the concerns are the same today as twenty five years ago. The exhibition also acknowledges his reading of ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’ by Rainer Maria Rilke that has taken his investigation into the nature of nature into new directions. References to bird songs and flowing arias remind us that humanity should respect nature which is to be enjoyed by all living organisms.

Martine Foltier Pugh is a freelance writer and visual artist based in Edinburgh

With thanks to Paul Martin

For further information:
Paul Martin's website: http://www.paulmartinstudio.com/
Paul Martin's exhibition 'When Men and Mountains Meet'  http://www.whenmenandmountainsmeet.co.uk/#!exhibition/cnnt
Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh http://dovecotstudios.com/about/
Warburton Gallery http://www.warburtongallery.com/#!when-men-and-mountains-meet/c12l0


And special thanks to Balfour Beatty Investments and Arts & Business Scotland for their financial support, which has enabled Art in Healthcare to produce 18 Artist Uncovered blog posts and accompanying video productions.

Artist Uncovered: Carolyn Burchell

A sandy beach, rows of windows set against a colourful facade, these scenes could be teeming with life and yet most of Carolyn Burchell’s paintings are devoid of people with perhaps just a hint of human presence here and there. We search for clues that would make the view distinctive or unique. 

Camusdarach Beach 42x55cm, acrylic on board, 2005

AiH Collection

Far from being put off by this stillness and emptiness, we find ourselves instead drawn towards it, the universal features acting as an invitation, a signal for our imagination to step in and we start weaving stories of our own. We begin to fill the painting with people we know and with our own memories of playing on a beach or of exploring Mediterranean villages.

Bar (Zaragoza) 56x76cm, mixed media on paper,1990

AiH Collection

Carolyn Burchell is a quiet and private artist who has been much inspired by her travels throughout Europe, latterly Norway and Poland in particular. For her the landscape is not about the faithful depiction of nature or memorable buildings but a means of expressing internal emotions. Working from detailed sketches drawn in situ and from photographs, back in her studio she teases out metaphors by carefully editing the composition. This process of simplification instils a dreamlike feel to her paintings that reaches beyond the edges of her relatively small wood panels.

Beyond 26x29cm, acrylic on board, 2013

image courtesy of the artist

The added appeal of such symbolist landscapes for us viewers is that we can project our own mood onto them. Whether we are feeling sad or happy, the artist has provided us with the perfect setting for our own thoughts. 
Since she painted the works in the AiH Collection, Burchell went on to complete a Masters in Research at the Glasgow School of Art in 2010 where she chose to focus on the forest.  

Girl in Garden 23x30cm, watercolour, 2011

image courtesy of the artist

She became particularly interested in symbolism in landscape painting and read about Freud’s concept of the Uncanny and Jung’s theories of the unconscious, something she had not expected to do. She also spent much time drawing with charcoal exploring these ideas. 

Into the Unknown 49cm diameter on paper 84cm x 59cm, 2010

image courtesy of the artist

She found the experience challenging, inspiring and full of surprises. For instance she once did a series of twenty five drawings of a pathway through trees, each one copied from the one before forming a flickbook and short film. The subtle and gradual changes seemed to animate the whole sequence so much so that another student said it looked like a fire. 

Trees and woodlands occupy a special place in our psyche, they abound in folk and fairy tales and forests can be both places of refuge and danger. For Burchell who has been since childhood an avid reader of literature, often fiction and fantasy, woodlands are places of shelter where she can retreat among the trees. She sometimes puts herself in the picture as a small figure that stands alone.

Orange Blaze 28x28cm, acrylic on board, 2012

image courtesy of the artist

How did the Masters impact on her work? Burchell feels that the intensive period of drawing has livened up her brush strokes and given movement to her paintings. Looking at her more recent works, we can see how her favourite archetypes have been energized. The trees are now animated and more expressive of the artist’s emotions.

Fern Wings 20x23cm, acrylic on board, 2011

image courtesy of the artist

She describes her work as cathartic because she can lose herself and forget about life’s tribulations while painting and she encourages this healing process through community education among the adult classes she teaches including two recent series of workshops she led for Art in Healthcare in 2013 and early 2014.

Martine Foltier Pugh is a freelance writer and visual artist based in Edinburgh

With thanks to Carolyn Burchell

For further information  
http://www.axisweb.org/p/carolynburchell/
http://www.waspsstudios.org.uk/artists/153



And special thanks to Balfour Beatty Investments and Arts & Business Scotland for their financial support, which has enabled Art in Healthcare to produce 18 Artist Uncovered blog posts and accompanying video productions.

Artist Uncovered: Catriona Mann

It is difficult if not impossible to imagine Catriona Mann ever being idle. In her own words, she likes to have a project on the go that “she can sink her teeth into” and she always finds plenty to keep herself busy.

Sylvia’s Lilies 91x91cm, mixed media

image courtesy of the artist

Having first graduated in Fine Art at Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art, she went on to study law.  She combined law and painting for a while until her children came along. Nowadays she finds law very useful to advise young artists and art organisations on tricky issues regarding copyright and contracts. 

Madonna, Siena Cathedral 72x51cm, mixed media

AiH Collection

She has made her mark on the art scene in Scotland in many ways. She got involved with ‘Paintings in Hospitals, Scotland’ from the start in 1991 as a founder trustee and as some readers will know, ‘Art in Healthcare’ was born of PiHS in 2005. An elected Professional Member of the Council of Visual Arts Scotland, she is a past President of Visual Arts Scotland and currently a Director of Exhibiting Societies of Scottish Artists.
She has also found time to renovate her house to its former glory and being a keen gardener, created a beautiful garden with flowers to inspire her from an overgrown mess. 

Daffodils 91x91cm (detail)

image courtesy of the artist

She describes her artworks as drawings rather than paintings. Indeed the prevailing linearity brings out their dreamlike feel and the words she frequently includes for their visual impact are evocative of surrealist automatic writing.

Shipping Forecast 91x91cm, mixed media

image courtesy of the artist

Her sources of inspiration are wide-ranging: music, foreign travels and cultures, religion and the plants she grows in her garden, particularly lilies for their shape. Her works are not simply representations of landscapes or seascapes but imaginary abstractions. For instance when a friend asked her to paint Iona, the green marble stones, known as ‘St Columba’s tears’ which he brought back from the island, guided the colours in the painting.

Celtic Blessing 30x30cm, mixed media

image courtesy of the artist

Mann does not paint on conventional canvas or paper, she prefers to work on mounting card which is strong enough to withstand her particular method of working. 
Forgoing brushes, she builds up layers of pigment and collage with watercolour crayons, water-based paint and tissue paper that give her better control and if the painting is not working, she simply scrapes off certain areas and starts again. Traces of the previous drawings remain visible on the surface. She welcomes these ghostly residues and integrates them into the next stage of the painting. She has very seldom regretted making such radical decisions. She believes that artists should experiment and take risks to push their work forward.

Venetian Facade 96x81cm, mixed media

AiH Collection

Sometimes she even peels the entire top layer right off the forgiving card. She showed me one of these discarded ’skins’ stretched out in her studio. It is down to her experience and skill that such a large area has survived in one piece this forceful separation. She will later integrate parts of it into new works. 
This process of deconstruction, reconstruction and metamorphosis denotes the close relationship, dependence even, between Mann’s finished paintings and her rejects and I am reminded of Picasso’s famous quote “The very act of creation is first an act of destruction”.

Lux Aeterna 91x91cm, mixed media

image courtesy of the artist

This is an artist who finds it liberating and inspiring to subvert conventions and who positively thrives on a state of creative flux. She explains that she starts with an idea but not a vision and that her most successful works have happened when she is least sure of the outcome, adding: “if it is too easy what’s the point?”

The following anecdote illustrates this statement. She recently brought back some incense sticks from Vietnam, not the usual twig-like sticks but five-feet long poles painted in striking red with gold lettering. Their transport back to Scotland took some resourceful wrapping and even more ingenious convincing of airline staff and customs officers. But in the end it was worth it. They arrived intact and will be featuring in future works. 

Martine Foltier Pugh is a freelance writer and visual artist based in Edinburgh

With thanks to Catriona Mann

For further information:
http://www.visualartsscotland.org/?page_id=608 
http://www.scottish-art-scene.com/ZSAS%20Q%209.pdf 
www.rsw.org.uk
www.catrionamann.com


And special thanks to Balfour Beatty Investments and Arts & Business Scotland for their financial support, which has enabled Art in Healthcare to produce 18 Artist Uncovered blog posts and accompanying video productions.

Artist Uncovered: Marjorie I Campbell 1936-1999

Marjorie Campbell was a professional book illustrator, graphic designer and lecturer. She was a most talented and prolific artist who left a collection of works that amaze by their diversity and strength.

Art work for the book jacket for ‘The Emperor’s Winding Sheet’

image courtesy of A G Campbell

Marjorie’s younger sister, Dr Alison Kerr, has made a meticulous inventory of her sketches, drawings and paintings and numerous sketchbooks. She showed me a selection while telling me her family history. The two girls were born in northern China where their parents were medical missionaries during the Sino-Japanese war. When their father died of typhoid aged 31, their mother had to make the perilous journey to the coast during brief periods of ceasefire with her two very young daughters of three years and eleven months respectively before boarding a ship home, a passage which during WWII, was fraught with danger.

One Feather & Four Stones 

image courtesy of A G Campbell

Back in Scotland, they settled down first in Inverness-shire and later in Edinburgh. Theirs was an artistic, musical and very supportive family. They occasionally received visits from missionary friends who would mesmerize their young audience with true and heroic stories. Later Marjorie would provide others with the same warmth and generosity she had grown up with. 

Edinburgh Castle Sketch 

Art in Healthcare Collection

Her talent was soon noticed and nurtured at home and at school. Alison remembers how their mother, now a teacher, involved her older daughter in creating art work in preparation for her own class teaching and in drawing paper dolls with which the two girls played. The family enjoyed outdoor pursuits such as camping and cycling that offered many sketching and painting opportunities. The Highland and Hebridean landscapes impressed Campbell early on, particularly the island of Lismore where she would often return as an adult with her husband and four daughters. 

Untitled [seascape], watercolour

image courtesy of A G Campbell

In 1954 Campbell went to Edinburgh College of Art, winning scholarships to London in 1956 and Paris in 1957. She qualified as a designer and book illustrator, a considered choice that combined her love of books and art and could earn an income. She became a Member of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers in 1985 and also applied her design talent to quilting for her family and friends. In 1989 she founded Luckenbooth, a small crystal engraving business, in collaboration with engraver Wilma MacKenzie.

Croft Cottage & Sitted Man, screen print

AiH Collection

In parallel with her professional practice, Campbell never ceased to draw and paint the world around her, her children, still lifes and flowers.  These loose and expressionist sketches, quickly executed, reveal an artist always challenging herself and equally at ease with representational or abstract language.

Untitled [abstract drawing], ink

image courtesy of A G Campbell

Dr Kerr explains that Campbell did not regard these experimental and fluid works as especially significant and many were given away or simply disposed of but those she kept were tucked away in an attic space. It was only after her death that her close family discovered the extent of her output and have since endeavoured to make it known.
For a couple of years Campbell had a studio in an abandoned brick works near Edinburgh, an environment that inspired a series of works featuring industrial rejects that she endowed with animal-like presence

.Untitled [industrial reject], watercolour

image courtesy of A G Campbell

Marjorie would have approved wholeheartedly the donation of sixteen of her works to Art in Healthcare to brighten up healthcare settings. Together they showcase the artist’s talent in a variety of media such as watercolour, pen and ink, screen print and oil from the fine details of ‘Edinburgh Castle’ to her powerful and subjective landscapes and seascapes. 
A surprise for the family was to discover several doll pictures among the attic stash. Reminiscent of her childhood cut outs, these dolls, despite their smiley face, are poignantly eerie and allude to carefully hidden turmoil.

Untitled [doll], watercolour

image courtesy of A G Campbell

As a whole the collection offers a remarkable insight into a personal artistic journey that epitomizes the renaissance of Scottish art in the second half of the twentieth century. It deserves to be pored over and appreciated by a much wider public. 

Martine Foltier Pugh is a freelance writer and visual artist based in Edinburgh.

With thanks to Dr A Kerr and A G Campbell

Further information:

Marjorie I Campbell's website http://www.marjoriecampbellina.com/main.htm 

Luckenbooth Fine Arts 
http://www.scotlandsglass.co.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=269:wilma-mackenzie-luckenbooth-gallery&catid=16:glass-makers-a-c&Itemid=8


And special thanks to Balfour Beatty Investments and Arts & Business Scotland for their financial support, which has enabled Art in Healthcare to produce 18 Artist Uncovered blog posts and accompanying video productions.

Artist Uncovered: Marj Bond RSW

A Sensuous Practice

Marj Bond welcomes me into her house. From the front it looks just like a typical Fife cottage. As she takes me through to the back however I am transported into another world. The house has been extended into a large wooden conservatory where artworks and large fronds compete for space. The views stretch to the Lomond Hills in the distance. 

Her surroundings inspire Bond, not to paint them realistically, but in a sensorial sense. The scents, light and colour of a place as well as its social and cultural attributes all impact on her mood, wellbeing and creativity. The revelatory moments that have transformed her practice over the years were triggered by her discovery of exciting new environments. 

Oasis oil on canvas 106x106cm

AiH Collection

After graduating from Glasgow School of Art, she was expected to settle down and teach in her home town of Paisley but instead escaped to go and teach in North Uist where the Hebridean landscape and the Gaelic culture had a powerful effect on her.

Then in 1988 Bond went for a three months sabbatical tour of India with James Gray, her soul mate and architect who designed their house extension. This experience changed her life. She absorbed all these stimuli, the people, animals and architectural details, in sketches and photographs and later back home in the intimacy of her studio conjured them up again in stylised and whimsical compositions in a variety of media with layers of handmade Indian paper for textured effect and compelling colours. 

Kashmiri Shrine silkscreen print 75x106cm

AiH Collection

Intuitive glyphs and motifs started to appear, retrieved from her innermost self. The artist cannot explain their meaning, they simply take shape as she works out a question or a problem. Painting is therapy for her.

Her palette which had been subdued until then was now vibrant and her subsequent exhibition ‘Images of India’ at the Open Eye Gallery was a great success.  She went on many more trips to colourful destinations such as Cuba, Mexico and Southern Spain. She mentions the influence that the allegorical paintings of Zapotec-Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo had on her work.

Children of the Conquistadores etching 51x42cm

AiH Collection

In recent years Bond has become fascinated by Mary Queen of Scots and has painted several portraits of her. Mary had strong connections with Fife through Falkland Palace, the Scottish kings’ hunting retreat and her imprisonment in Lochleven Castle. The artist has deliberately exaggerated the oblong face. This elongation and the simplification of features are characteristic of Bond’s style and convey tension and emotion. Such stylisation is reminiscent of so-called primitive masks and of Alberto Giacometti’s work for instance that Bond admires. The long narrow nose stretches almost the whole length of the face to emphasise the wistful eyes and tight mouth.

Mary Queen of Scots Imprisoned in Loch Leven mixed media 23x23cm

image courtesy of the artist

Mary’s golden headdress shines like the halo of religious iconography, Eastern and Western alike, a suggestion reinforced by the gold cross showing under her ruff and by the flame-like cartouche above her head that bears her monogram. Her deathly-pale face appears to be floating against the dark background, alluding to her tragic end, a queen and a martyr saint all at once.  

Bond speaks of Mary’s fate with great empathy, how she had to give up the sensuous French court for the oppressive Scotland of John Knox, a destiny in reverse to her own it seems as her discovery of India and other inspiring countries fulfilled her passionate temperament.

She is currently working on a portrait of Joyce Laing, the Fife-based champion of ‘Outsider Art’ and pioneer of art therapy in Scotland. She hopes it will be exhibited in due course as a tribute to the sitter. Bond’s appreciation of this art form outside fine art conventions is entirely consistent with her own practice. 

Martine Foltier Pugh is a freelance writer and visual artist based in Edinburgh

With thanks to Marj Bond

For further information:
http://www.rsw.org.uk/pages/members_page.php?recordID=302
http://www.openeyegallery.co.uk/artist-details/marj-bond/


And special thanks to Balfour Beatty Investments and Arts & Business Scotland for their financial support, which has enabled Art in Healthcare to produce 18 Artist Uncovered blog posts and accompanying video productions.