Exotic garden on Isle of Arran inspires a unique talent

There’s a long tradition of artists drawing inspiration from their gardens. Think of Monet at Giverny and Nolde in Seebüll. The complexity of natural forms, the subtlety and boldness of colours, and sheer variety, drives such artists to create.

Josephine Broekhuizen, who trained in the Netherlands and in Aberdeen, is a gifted artist whose work deserves more notice. She is the granddaughter of Jacob Maris (1837–1899), one of the most influential Dutch painters of the 19th century whose work is well represented in the Scottish national collection.

Broekhuizen lives on the Isle of Arran, near Lamlash, where she is afforded sweeping panoramas of the Firth of Clyde. Arran has proved a fertile ground for artists, and it’s clear that Broekhuizen is similarly inspired.

This show of oils, prints and collages gives an idea of the range of Broekhuizen’s subject matter, and showcases her considerable painterly talents to good effect. Over the past few years she has created an exotic garden border and about half of the work reflects this, with colourful splashes of intensely hued foliage and flowers. Although her starting point is representation, she acknowledges the role of imagination, which adds “core movement and aspects of the mysterious”. The images are an amalgam, where the individual elements are orchestrated to create a final composition.

Her work is peopled by the human figure, which she juxtaposes with plants and other, more traditional still-life elements. She also looks outward, to the islands of the Clyde and the mountains beyond, in works such as the collage Horse Island, or the oil Three Men in a Boat.

Broekhuizen has created a unique pictorial signature, using careful stylisation and clever composition. The picture plane is foreshortened and perspective altered, signalling that these are artifice and part of a tradition of careful, close-up observation that she clearly inherits from her Dutch forebears.

Seeing Things Grow is at Compass Gallery, Glasgow G2 4RL (0141 221 6370), to February 23