artist residency | Cove Park, Scotland ~ April 2022

Papermaking& Argyrotype Prints

As an artist from Australia with Scottish heritage, I was aware that Gaelic was the Scottish language but had never had “a way in” to what it means to be living within a landscape that has its own language.

I met fellow artist Rona Dhòmhnallach during my time at Cove Park, just north of Glasgow, Scotland. Over dinner we were discussing my recent artworks about the Scottish clearances I made during an artist residency I had on the Isle of Lewis.

Rona offered to research Gaelic names for some of my artworks, and through her eyes as a native Gaelic speaker, I was drawn into the Scottish landscape in a way that I had not had access to previously. This gift of names and the insights into my work as both a “pilgrim and a stranger” became the subject of a blogpost I wrote about this generous gift.

During my time at Cove Park I created small landscape vignettes using reconstituted paper pulp I brought with me from Australia. I used small silkscreen material stretched onto embroidery hoops to create the circular shapes.

I also continued making argyrotype prints using ferns and mosses found on site. These created narratives of the regenerative power of nature, where old rocks walls were gradually disintegrating under lichen.

Nature as reclamation.