Archived

Zanna Wilson | Road to the Isles

Now closed (22nd August 2021)

More can be read about Zanna and her practice on the Artist section of this website. Road to the Isles, and accompanying sculptural work by James Newton Adams served to launch Zanna’s period of curatorship of The Watermill Gallery. Remaining works can be purchased by contacting Zanna, or in person at The Watermill Gallery. A catalogue can be seen here.

‘A far croonin’ is pullin me away
As take I wi’ my cromach to the road.
The far Cuillins are puttin’ love on me.
As step I wi’ the sunlight for my load’

“These above are the opening lines of ‘Road to the Isles’, a famous tune composed by Pipe Major John McLellan DCM which was originally called ‘The Bens of Jura’, though it had previously held other titles. It is part of a collection that appeared in a book entitled ‘Songs of the Hebrides’ published in 1917 with the eponymous title. The poem is headed by the statement ‘Written for the lads in France during the Great War’. The successive locations mentioned in this song have inspired me considerably since my very first visit to Skye in 2000 and my subsequent University jobs on the Isle of Harris as a nanny sowed the seeds of an utter fascination with the varied landscape of the Isles; the Cuillin Hills (on Skye), Tummel and Loch Rannoch (both in Perthshire near where I now live), Lochaber (a district in the western Scottish Highlands), Shiel (a reference to Loch Shiel), Ailort, Moray, the Skerries and the Lews (a former name of the Isle of Lewis). Such a rich range of landscapes to explore, in 2019 when I agreed to have my third solo show with The Watermill Gallery I thought I’d be dotting over the Isles, driving the famous road by the same name, the A830 road with frequent trips to Mallaig with onward ferries to the Isles of Muck, Eigg, Rum and Canna. Little did I know that Covid would scupper most of these plans so my rich source of material has been the memories of previous trips to these places and literally my paintings have become like ‘Songs to the Hebrides’. Many of the titles of my paintings and monoprints in this collection are informed by the lines of the song and vice versa. Luckily for many years between 2001 & 2008 I spent more than a few weeks each year travelling to these places, most especially Skye, Lewis, Harris and the area around Ailort. Latterly, I’ve been venturing to more Inner Isles like Mull, Tiree, Kerrera and Coll, often visiting at least once a year. The clear light of the West and expansive horizons continue to fill my visual mind and I think I’ve many more exhibitions based upon these themes. The urge to keep on painting spurs me on to keep delving deeper and find ever-lasting ways to extend my exploration of the West in all her glory. My mediums for this are varied; usually I begin with ink and watercolour sketches peppered with a bit of pastel then I build up to acrylic and I’ve recently returned to my very textural use of oil paint and beeswax mixed with raw pigments. I continue working in a playful and experimental way and this Winter 2021 I’ve found a rich new vein in my discovery of how the monoprint technique can help my work. I now want to scale up many of my monoprints into large abstract pieces. This is something I’ve only just begun to explore.”

James Newton Adams | Recent Sculptures

Now closed (17th July 2021)

James Adams was born in 1971. After completing a degree in Fine Art (Sculpture), James started up his own business in London designing and making metal furniture and products for the retail market as well as undertaking various private commissions from architectural ironwork through to product design and sculpture, teaching himself the rudiments of Blacksmithing along the way.

By late 2004 James decided to return to his roots in sculpture and painting and set up a studio on the Isle of Skye. James’s work is collected worldwide and can be seen in a selection of commercial galleries throughout the UK.

“Working as a sculptor and painter, I explore my experience of the land and seascapes of Scotland as well as the people, animals and objects that inhabit them, often highlighting tensions in their relationships with each other and with the landscape itself. I work from memories of such places, drawing upon a narrative within. This allows me to build a composition around a theme - the title will as often inform the work as the other way round. The perspectives in my work are the perspectives of memory, in which different stages of a narrative may be seen simultaneously or a scene may be viewed from above as if in a dream or a map.

My steel sculptures identify with my paintings in that shared themes are explored and perspective is distorted. Pieces of steel are riveted to a forged armature, building a contour. As the viewer moves around the work, a slim profile gives way to a ‘metal tapestry’; different aspects of the story are revealed.

The sculptures are about connections; emotions are expressed in hard steel by joining the pieces together in simple but evocative ways. Steel is a direct but also a very demanding medium; through the processes of forging, welding, riveting and grinding, emotions are reduced to an elemental state in the finished work.

The influences within my work draw mostly upon Expressionism, Folk and British Naïve Art from the early and mid-20th century. As a trained artist the challenge I face is to ‘unlearn’ and let go of the constraints while benefiting from the technical control that a formal training brings. I hope to engage the viewer and provoke an interaction with the work, unleashing a once dormant childhood appreciation or stirring a haunting memory within.”