Different takes on an Orkney tapestry capture its mystery

For generations, Orkney’s ever-changing light, kinetic skies and the bare bones of its geology have inspired artists of all kinds, among them great poets such as Edwin Muir and George Mackay Brown. Visual artists, too, are no exception and several of them have been assembled here, providing highly differing responses to these beautiful and mysterious northerly islands.

Samantha Clark, based in Birsay, describes her work as ‘a meditation on water and time, and a response to the natural environment...’  Meditation is a good way to describe Clark’s approach because these studies in acrylic, often on aluminium or cradled board panels, oscillate between specificity and universality – and their meaning and substance also change, according to the viewer’s perspective. From a distance, they often appear as abstracted studies of watery vistas, clouds, or shining pools on shore or bog. Up close, they are an intricate merging of tone and texture, overlaid with complex, intricate webs that resemble microscopic or sub-atomic structures.

There is something deeply, spiritual and, yes, meditative about these intensely thoughtful responses to time and place.  They feel as if they have been created from a perspective located within the land, rather than as an external observation of it. These images are not only about place, but about that much misunderstood word, ‘soul’. The paintings have a devotional aspect and in our secular times, that is a rarity and something greatly to be welcomed.

I’m often amazed at how different artists respond to similar places and contexts. As if to illustrate this, the other artists here – Barbara Rae, Victoria Crowe, Anne Bevan, Frances Walker and Frances Pelly – all of whom have worked or lived on Orkney – take very different approaches. Rae’s studies of Yesnaby are perhaps the furthest from Clark’s approach – colourful, bold, even brash, and celebratory.

Bevan’s technique, although differing in medium, is about getting under the surface of things – literally. In a collaboration with archaeologist, Mark Edmonds, she has explored the labradorite stones, brought back as ballast to the islands in the 19th century, as a figurative and literal device to explore the past.

If you are into all things Orcadian, then a centenary show celebrating the painter Bet Low at Glasgow School of Art makes a perfect complement to what George Mackay Brown described as the ‘Orkney tapestry’.

     Until March 2, 2025