Mary Macdonald

I was born in the Hebrides. My present land-based life on the Black Isle farm where my husband was born is a long distance from the countless generations of my seafaring ancestors. My art reflects something of those contrary influences. The raging Atlantic breakers crashing on rocks, or roaring up the sandy strand, the salty spray carried briskly over the machair from the ocean on a good day, and the whole family squelching over moorland to the peatbogs where all hands help to make and gather the year's fuel are some of the powerful images which filter through my memory from my earliest days.

Today I look out on gentle cultivated farmland with ever-changing crops and animals presented with a background of the great mass of Ben Wyvis, and the narrow blue-grey strip of the Cromarty Firth.

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The wide open skies with their chasing clouds, the constant movement of the sea and the stunning reflections of flowers in a glass of water give me inspiration for many paintings. Although my university studies were in the sciences, I like to think that my artistic side was not neglected. I am in debt to several encouraging tutors especially Sarah (Gordon) Grant and Allan Macdonald.

My first experiences of exhibiting and selling artwork were with the Dingwall Art Group in the late 1980's and the Inverness Art Society shortly after that. Textiles and ceramics have competed with painting in my timetable of interests over the years, with 1997 and 1998 almost completely given over to ceramics. For about two years (2007/08) I hardly painted at all while I re-assessed my work. I continued drawing in pen and ink, doodling, and at the end of 2008 I prepared some boards with acrylic primer and gesso and got out my oil paints.

I am still excited by the paint! I enjoy reading about the constituent pigments and how they react with each other, but above all I love the feel of oil pȧint under the palette knife or brush, dragging one colour over another to produce certain effects, predictable and accidental. Abstract combinations of colours and shapes take on a life of their own which I may a1ter and manipulate to produce an effect which pleases me.