OUR ARTISTS
OUR ARTISTS ARE LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY SURNAME
Statement
My work navigates the worlds between nature and personal history, exploring themes of the cycles of nature both within and without the individual and inter-generational issues such as family-history, memory, and inheritability. Working across diverse mediums from watercolour to bricolage my work reflects a fascination with the ever-changing, transient beauty of both the natural world and that which we experience through it. By using elements like flower pressings and other found materials, I strive to capture otherwise fleeting or forgotten moments in nature and narratives, preserving them within each composition. Through this process, I explore how our personal histories are intertwined with the organic world, always shifting, growing, and renewing.
Bio
Katie Rose is an artist whose practice spans multiple mediums, with a focus on nature and its connections to personal and family history. From oils to bricolage, her pieces often integrate found and natural materials to create works that evoke the transience of both the natural landscape and our selves. Continuously experimenting and evolving, Katie’s art serves as a bridge between nature’s cycles and the narratives passed down through generations. Alongside her personal practice, she hosts mindful art workshops for adults and older adults, as well as fun, exploratory sessions for children, aiming to inspire a deeper appreciation for nature's beauty and its place in our lives.}
Statement
As a painter and printmaker, Ros finds inspiration in fragments of nature held close for reflection. She employs a personal vocabulary of fluid marks and organic imagery to express the sensual pleasure and ephemeral quality of the natural world. Within this realm, her work varies from representational to abstract, and she is continuously moving along between the two. Ros tends to work in series, both subject matter and the materials used in creating her lino and wood plates and prints, or in the exploration of a particular image.
In years that are more recent, Ros has reconnected to her true love of painting and has been exploring ways to connect painting and printing processes. Moving from actual plants used as printing material in eco-printing and painting, where there is a seasonal aspect to this process; she is using found plant material, and the availability changes with the seasons. The temporal quality of the material, alluding to the passage of time, and the ephemeral nature of the material itself, all speaks to a place in her that craves more connection to the natural world.
Bio
I am a painter, printmaker, designer and mother of one and a string of animals, who lives and works from my studio and home on a farm on the outskirts of Dundee. My luck is having the pleasure of rural and coastal Angus on my doorstep and the art world of Dundee, with its many attractions within five minutes.
I have always been an artist, but my earlier career was as an Exhibition Designer after graduating in Exhibition and Display Design in 1972. I worked freelance at this until a bout of ill health around fifteen years ago made me have a re think. This grounding, which covered many of my current practices, has stood me in good stead for my creative years going forward.
Bringing design experience and raw creativity to my work. Inspired by a practice of creating one small painting a day, I have expanded upon the themes and ideas generated therein to build several new series of paintings and prints. My most recent series, Misty Morns is reflective of my early morning journeys through the countryside to an art venue I was showing. My abstract naturalism work examines the history of life on earth within a geologic time frame. The beauty of the forms that organic life have taken on, is examined on an intimate scale and recreated in a bold and fluid way. I am continually experimenting with surface texture and related reactions with my preferred medium of acrylic ink.
A few years ago, I added a new love to my creations in the form of individual leather bound artist’s books. Made with various papers and eco printed pages, lashed for expansion and using the natural edge of the leather. Creating a very tactile and much loved item.
Statement
I have been looking recently at worlds
within worlds. Those we can’t easily see but
are playing a part, as we do, in the functioning of the world we live in. I am enthralled by the natural world and particularly the smaller things. Ones that are often overlooked. I have found myself drawn to mosses and the microscopic life that is in and around these
fascinating tiny plants. A carpet of moss is like a forest in miniature; a thriving habitat. The role of mosses, particularly sphagnum, in storage of both water and carbon is huge. Mosses help fight air pollution, colonise bare ground paving the way for other plants to grow and can reduce the risk and severity of flooding. They are also very beautiful and varied when you look closely.
Perhaps we can pay closer attention to things in front of us to help gain a deeper connection to the world around us, and perhaps this will
result in an increased empathy with the non-human.
Bio
Kit Martin studied Biological Imaging, Medical Illustration (photography) and Environmental Management and worked in both medical and police photography before moving into environmental work with SNH, Zero Waste Scotland and others.
Since starting her freelance artistic practice, Kit’s work has been shown in Museums and Galleries around Scotland. She has twice been an invited artist with CONTACT Photo Festival in Toronto and for Analogue Dreams in Aberdeen. As a member of Shutterhub Kit has exhibited at OPEN Photomonth (London & Amsterdam), Festival Pil’ours, Retina Festival and in Cambridge and is featured in their book Yearbook 2020. As a volunteer Kit photographed people with strong links to woodlands in Scotland for Reforesting Scotland’s book Woodlanders; New Life in Britain’s Forests.
She regularly runs workshops in the cyanotype process with adults and young artists as well as argyrotype and pinhole camera workshops.
Statement
Jenna Martin Leitch is an artist & writer based in Fife, Scotland. A past graduate of DJCAD, graduating in 2001 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Printmaking.
Jenna grew up in the wilds of Aberdeenshire, and she has always been inspired by her time spent in the great outdoors.
Birds feature in much of her work, with the concepts of the nest, of flight, and of feathers being her main sources of inspiration. Home, family and spreading of wings.
Jenna’s ethereal artworks have a connection to both her own childhood, surrounded by the wildlife and countryside of the North East of Scotland, and family holidays in the Glens of Perthshire. She also uses imagery to create visual stories and capture memories of, and for, her own children. She draws her own children in nature; and with her drawings and paintings, purveys the way being within and amongst nature makes you feel.
She works primarily in graphite and coloured pencil, Japanese watercolour and written word.
Through open-hearted & wide-eyed observation of the natural world, her intricate and detailed works are filled with wonder and imagination. The tiny details that may go unnoticed, and the treasures she finds along the way.
She creates works to bring JOY!
Bio
Jenna Martin Leitch is also known as @bluebellebombshell
She is an artist and writer based in Fife, Scotland. She creates original artworks and illustrations, inspired by the treasures and the wonder that she finds during the time she spens in the great outdoors, and within the natural world where she lives.
They are sunshine filled, bursting with love, and often whimsical. With JOY at their centre.
Her drawings and paintings are intricate and detailed. She has them as a range of original artworks, prints, greetings cards, artists books, accessories and homewares.
Her motto within her work is
“Helping you find your happy, as I go about my life finding mine…!”
Statement
I am an experimental textiles designer and artist with a background in life sciences. My work is interdisciplinary, crossing the boundaries of Art, Design, Science, and Education. I am passionate about sharing my excitement and enthusiasm for scientific understanding with others, particularly through visual means. As someone with dyslexia, visual representations of scientific concepts were crucial in making these topics more accessible and enjoyable for me. The beauty of a world invisible to the naked eye captivated me early on. This is my motivation.
Science has always relied on forms of visual representation to communicate its findings. Before photography, scientists needed to be accomplished artists to share their discoveries to the wider world. Even today, effective visual references are essential for scientists to communicate their findings, even within their own disciplines.
The ultimate goal of my work is to stimulate interest in and engagement with life sciences in children. I create fun, attractive visual works and environments using microbes commonly encountered during childhood in Scotland. My aim is to improve the basic understanding of life sciences principles as a foundation for ongoing learning. This understanding is crucial, especially in the wake of a global pandemic and as humans increasingly encroach on natural habitats, raising the risk of disease spillover events.
Statement
We can no longer think of Nature as being "Other".
I have always explored the connection of art and science, and although my career started in Surgery, It was through shadowing surgeons across various projects that I came to understand anatomy and the finite functions of the body. Which led me to, and bear with me, find similarities in properties between organs and plants, predominantly bryophytes; plants I had been studying for years alongside my practice.
These wonderful plants are depicted in my realist paintings and drawings. These explore the wonderful macro-worlds all around us; at our very feet, covering trees, branches, and rocks, weird and wonderful structures and plants that often go overlooked and under-appreciated. By subverting the scale of these macro-plants, I want my drawings and paintings to be a testimony to these incredible macro-landscapes.
My surrealist paintings, on the other hand, explore and depict the anthropological research conducted alongside the scientific research. An investigation into the intersection of society and ecology, botany, and biology. A culmination of years of research in the field and in hospitals, my surrealist works and writing explore the undeniable link we humans have with the environment with the hope that by blurring the boundary between "Nature" and "Us" we might fight harder to save it.
Bio
Based between Edinburgh and Dundee, Inês is a Fine-Artist and painter with a background in Surgery, Science, Botany and Social-Anthropology.
She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2016 with a degree in Painting, and from the University of Edinburgh in 2018 with a Masters degree in Social Anthropology.
Inês works both independently and with organisations on a project-basis. She had a residency with the Surgeon’s Hall Museum in Edinburgh from 2020-2022 where she worked on the 'Body Voyager' project which explored the Human, Patient, Robot relationship in robotic surgery (her work can be found on the top floor of the Surgeon's Hall Museum), the Mater Misercordiae Hospital in Dublin shadowing pioneering surgeries teaching an Ai how to detect cancer through fluorescence, culminating in 'Beyond the Surface', and recently worked with the Dundee Botanic Gardens in the creation of an educational 'Bryophytes and Lichens' art trail.
Inês is a member of the British Bryological Society and Society of Botanical Artists, founder of the Nature Collective, and currently artist in residence and co-curator at the Dundee Botanic Gardens.
Inês is a research-based artist and an active collaborator.
Statement
Between the folds of the earth, fallen branches and scattered leaves, humanity has always found ways of fixing itself into the scars and scaffolds of nature. Nature in turn, however, although plucked and preened and burned and buried, has always anchored herself, rooted to the core of the earth.
My recent body of work; including printmaking, drawing and painting, depicts the relationships and correlations between land, animal and human; threads of narratives fluttering inside each work, reflecting on my own enjoyment in the writings of Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling. With this, it is my intention to revert us back to our childish encounters with the wild, and remind us of our own ephemeral presence in this feral land.
Bio
Born in South Africa, I have always been interested in the unpredictable landscape and the diverse ecologies of animal and human. Immigrating to Scotland in 1998, after my schooling I moved to Dundee to study Fine Art at DJCAD, and later went on to complete an MFA. Now working as a secondary Teacher of Art and Design in the city, my work in sculpture, drawing, printmaking and more recently painting continues to take inspiration from the habitats and relationships between a diverse range of species, fuelled by travels in the Far East, Europe and my homeland.
Statement
My earliest memories of art were strongly connected to nature and the outdoors. Drawing in a little notepad at the harbour with my grandad or trying to learn what birds were at my local pond so I could draw them in more detail.
I used to hate being dragged for long walks in the country or seaside, but I always ended up feeling happy I did. Now as an adult I find that time with nature as so important, especially for mental health and being inspired creatively.
Working in a sketchbook is always how my ideas start, like the work of so many creatives. But I really love working digitally and working to learn new ways of working and experimenting with different software.
Bio
Laura Penman studied at Glasgow School of Art graduating in 2006 with a BA HONS in Visual Communication. Since then she has work as a Graphic Designer in publishing and later in corporate design.
Following a career change in 2017 to do a PGDE in Secondary Art and Design at Moray House, Edinburgh University to become a secondary Art and Design teacher, finding work in schools was a challenge. But a role lecturing part time in the Art & Design department at Dundee and Angus college was an amazing opportunity.
Following becoming a parent and struggling through the Covid lockdown the seed of Wee Red Designs was born. Initially starting in late 2021 to design stationery with a motivational and fun message. The priority of the stationery is that it is sustainable and uses materials which are recycled, can be recycled or are biodegradable to help prevent waste. Wee Red Designs is still in the early stages but has recently been branching out to teach community family art classes.
Statement
Emma's research is centred around the visibility of thresholds and the interiority of landscape, with a particular interest in how geological sites are experienced, interpreted through time and recounted through individual lived experience. Weaving her way through mineral narratives and land and seascape ecologies, Emma’s multidisciplinary approach connects photography and found objects as mementos left over time and manifests across an accumulation of layers and strata, completed by installation, artists books and printmaking. Her creative practice is rooted in her background in mysticism and folklore, through visual narratives that cast off the written word, and through the relation to people who have wandered before.
Bio
Scottish artist Emma Rankin holds an MFA in Art, Science & Visual Thinking from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee as well as an MA in Printmaking from LUCA School of Art in Belgium. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Textile & Surface Design from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen with a focus on sculptural printmaking in 2014.
Emma has exhibited internationally in galleries and institutions and is currently a consulting artist for the PAINSTORM consortium, an international group of medical professionals and patient partners focusing on research into neuropathic pain. Currently based in Glasgow, Emma has been invited to participate in residency programmes in Europe and is the current Artist in Residence for the Botanic Gardens in Dundee.
She is also the founder of Altitude; a candle and lifestyle brand that focuses on slow production and finds inspiration in Scottish seasonality through capturing memories of special places by a revisiting of folklore and cultural heritage in a contemporary way.
Statement
I am an artist inspired by formations present in the natural world and the ways in which craft connects the maker to their environment. My textile work combines machine and hand processes and is concerned with how making can help to enhance wellbeing. Nature continues to be my main inspiration where I highlight the joy in appreciating local environments through bright, uplifting colours and bold shapes in my artwork.
Conkers from the horse chestnut tree were the main inspiration for my degree show work due to their link to childhood and commonplace presence in urban areas. Mixing media such as textiles, ceramics and laser cutting on wood I created playful hanging and sculptural pieces reflecting the changing seasons.
Bio
Anna graduated with a degree in Textile Design at DJCAD, University of Dundee in 2024 winning awards for her final year work during her degree and New Designers shows. She works in textile and visual art creating projects reflecting her playful and vibrant style. Currently Anna is taking a gap year to gain professional experience and work on a portfolio for future Masters study.
Statement
Since I was young, I loved going on nature trails in my local area and learning about insects in my Collins Garden Wildlife guide. In my fourth year dissertation I investigated how anthropomorphism, sense of ownership of green spaces and spending time outdoors could encourage connection to nature in children.
I like to incorporate these themes into my projects and sketchbook work to encourage children and families to care for our planet.
Bio
Cara Rooney is an illustrator and plaything maker from Dundee, creating interactive books, live drawings and activity trails encouraging connection to nature. Through bright colours, bold shapes and playful drawings, she communicates a sense of child-like curiosity and fascination for the world. Her newly released picture book, A Little World of Ants, inspires readers to look closer at the little nature worlds that surround us, through interactive elements replicating the feelings of exploring outside.
Alongside her illustration practice, Cara facilitates design workshops and tours as a Freelance Educator for V&A Dundee, and through various co-design projects, encourages participants to engage with their local environment.
Bio
Suzanne Scott is an award-winning designer and illustrator who works under the name WhimSicAL LusH.
She loves going on inky adventures and adores the little things in life that so often pass us by. She is inspired by the joys that nature provides and discovering those wonderful, curious nostalgic childhood memories that often feel like dreams.
Helping others find their voice through art is also a great passion of Suzanne’s and she can often be heard shouting about how therapeutic creativity can be.
Whether she’s creating creatures or castles, houses or robots, drawing trees, toadstools or flowers, or turning people’s ideas into reality there is always a story on her drawing board. Come and join her on her journey in ink and step into the little world of WhimSicAL LusH.
Suzanne has also secured prominence as a public artist with Dundee’s Discovery Walk (in Dundee’s new waterfront), a painted door for Open/Close Dundee, a 3D wooden mural for Roxburghe House, Dundee and has been part of several public art trails, including both Oor Wullie’s Bucket Trails and Maggie’s Penguin Parade, where she was art director and trail artist too.
More recently, Suzanne worked with children and young people from across Angus to create the Monifieth Art Trail and her Dundee Christmas Card installation outside the Caird Hall in Dundee City Square during Christmas 2020 was a great hit. Suzanne’s biggest project to date was unveiled in May 2022 – artwork for the new Children’s Surgical Unit in Ward 30 at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee. Hopefully helping elevate anxieties for children and their families across Tayside.
As well as working on designs for WhimSicAL LusH Suzanne enjoys collaborating and working alongside others, leading and being part of creative projects.
Over the last few years Suzanne has raised approximately £170,00 for charity with her illustration work and been part of charity teams helping to raise nearly £3 million!!!
Suzanne’s work has featured in several solo and group exhibitions and there a number of shops and galleries throughout Scotland stocking her work. She regularly attends art events and markets throughout the year and sells online via Etsy.
Statement
My artwork is inspired by the natural landscape. Form, colour and natural materials I use are all derived from the Scottish landscape I immerse myself in. My work varies from installations to paintings, and photography to drawing. Giving the intricate and chaotic nature of plants a platform is my goal. I'm fueled creatively by walking outside among trees or through an art installation within a gallery space. In recent years I've been pulled towards using bright, bold colours when painting, and reserving delicate forms to my sculptural pieces.
Bio
I love to work with people, and coordinating Fun A Day Dundee is an absolute joy. FADD is art community passionate about embracing the enjoyment of creativity in all its forms, by all kinds of people. Connecting with people on a creative level opens up new opportunities for artistic development, which I love to facilitate in, and embrace.
I studied at DJCAD Dundee, and enjoy working among creative organisations locally.
I have experience in creative arts in an educational setting, public art, curating, project coordinating, and working to individual commissions.
Statement
I feel a deep, intrinsic connection to the natural landscape and beauty of my native Scotland, in particular the Highlands and Western Isles. I find whenever I spend time in these places I'm afforded serenity, stillness, mindfulness and an overwhelming sense of contentment. These remote and sparsely populated regions grant me the opportunity to reflect without any detrimental influence - to be at peace with oneself and fully appreciate existing in that particular moment in time and space. I strive to create work that both celebrates this from a personal perspective, but will hopefully appeal to those who have yet to experience such places and encourage them to do so.
Bio
I studied Fine Art, Drawing and Painting at DJCAD and graduated in 2004. Upon leaving Art School my creative output was channelled through music exclusively for the following 2 decades, wherein I was fortunate enough to experience numerous successes with the various projects I was involved in.
In 2019 I started hillwalking and through my 'Munro bagging' adventures I subsequently developed a strong passion for Scotland's mountains, glens, and other hard-to-reach places, which began to influence my writing. This eventually accumulated in a return to creating visual art in the Spring of 2024, having been inspired by numerous contemporary and traditionalist landscape painters. I like to work in oils depicting scenes from my travels in Scotland.
Statement
While digital illustration is the main body of my work I enjoy making my illustrations into physical items using a variety of crafts that I once considered hobbies. Pyrography, Laser cutting and Embroidery all help me elevate my work and make it tangible.
My work is heavily influenced by small Scottish animals and if you can see it on a woodland walk I’ll draw it! There's just something about woodland creatures that has always fascinated me, we only see them for a short time out in the wild and I think it's nice to think about what they’re up to and to capture their likeness.
Bio
Erin is an Illustrator and Maker from Aberdeen, She now lives in Dundee where she studied Illustration at DJCAD. Since graduating in 2023 Erin has been working on her digital making skills and making products to sell at markets. Erin’s work takes inspiration from Scottish nature with a focus on animals.
Want to become part of The Nature Collective?
There is an annual £20 membership fee, which gets you
- a personalised profile on our website, with links to your social media platforms; Instagram, websites,
twitter, LinkedIn, and anything else you deem relevant.
- Inclusion in the newsletter to our mailing list containing announcements of new artists, advertising of your personal events, exhibitions, workshops, and art/craft fairs, as well as those organised by the collective.
- Advertising on our Instagram, website, and YouTube, through posts, reels, videos, stories, and updates of you, your work and your exhibitions; anything you’d like us to help promote
- Newsletters to artists-only with exclusive access to opportunities provided by our organisations such as: collaborations, exhibitions, workshop opportunities, art and craft fairs etc.
- And a community. We hope to run Collective meet-ups, exhibition visits, and hopefully other activities.
CONTACT US to find out more
E-mail: artandnaturecollective@gmail.com
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