Portals
I am a painter who’s interested in the garden as a glitchy, psychological space.
The RSA David Michie Travel Award allowed me to spend two weeks in Kyoto, Japan where I visted over twenty gardens.
The paintings in this series are exercises in space making. Informed by the mechanisms of space making and manipulation I saw in the gardens of Kyoto, I have created a group of imagined virtual gardens. Since coming back from Japan I have built on memories of my trip by making paper, plasticine and cardboard models in my studio, growing and piecing together this series of works. The gardens of Kyoto have taught me that forms don’t necessarily need to be horticultural to be considered part of a garden.
Kyoto’s gardens felt like portals to somewhere else. Movement may have been constricted, but the framed views gave the illusion you could go anywhere. I really hope these paintings are little portals of their own, maybe not quite back to the time I spent in the gardens of Kyoto, but to the imaginary spaces I’ve been inhabiting in my studio since I came home.
I am an Aberdeen-based painter who graduated from Painting at Gray’s School of Art in 2022.
