OUR ARTISTS
OUR ARTISTS ARE LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY SURNAME
Statement
My work investigates the space between things, transitions in states of being and connections through responses to the passage of time. Thinking through making gives connections an attention and focus . Enquiry and process impacts within art making, connecting both the viewer and maker with a material culture that invites investigation of the archaeology of marks or objects. It grows a desire to draw closer, to connect in understanding, reflecting on influences from both science and the natural world.
Collaborating with artists and scientists has offered new and exciting ways of sharing thinking through making and working together. With approaches that are both sympathetic but also challenging to my work, this transdisciplinarity creates a wholeness by thinking across boundries. I am interested in exploring this space between ‘not knowing’ and then the ‘knowing’ . These states are where the making of art inhabits and also the study of the Universe.
Bio
Art therapist, visual Artist and Researcher with a collaborative practice.
Interests : Process, Materiality, Time, Psychoterratic States and the language of Climate Change and Loss of Biodiversity
Graduate of St Martins, London
My practice is research-focussed with material culture, history and the narratives within. I look to make artworks that are process led and that values embodied and situated learning. Underpinning my practice is a belief in the need to explore old and new ways of seeing and being in the world at this time of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss
I have been involved in a range of inter-disciplinary research projects collaborating with art therapists, artists, astronomers, geneticists, and social scientists.
I work with a variety of materials and processes from my studio in moderately rural Fife.
I am a council member of the SSA and exhibit regularly.
Statement
Jess Broc is a research led artist exploring the broad concepts of resilience and trauma from the individual, collective and ecological perspectives, questioning the interconnectedness of human and non-human.
Broc challenges how we can build resilience by changing our perceptions of our place within the biosphere.
Deep exploration of materials and their properties and the vitality of matter is at the forefront of her practice. Understanding the complexities of our current age of existence and how the capitalocene in which we live is creating trauma on a colossal scale, for selves, communities and the planet
Bio
I am a Scottish artist currently in my final year of Art & Philosophy at DJCAD, following a foundation and HNC in Contemporary Art at Edinburgh College. I took a very roundabout, rhizomatic journey of working many different jobs, travelling a lot and figuring out my path before deciding to go to art school in my mid-twenties. The range of life experience I gathered has informed a lot of my art and research. My practice includes sculpture, film, photography and writing.
My practice has developed lots in this period but has always had a focus on the interconnectedness of all things, ecological, human and non-human; and a focus on healing.
As I step into my career I hope to collaborate with more like-minded artists on exciting projects that bring hope and joy in our current age of despair. I believe we cannot heal the global mental health crisis without healing our ecological one.
Statement
Julie Campbell is a self taught, emerging wildlife artist and comic creator. Passionate about our natural world, she loves to seek out her local wild spaces to gather sketches and photos of landscapes and wildlife, then reinterpret them digitally - creating simple, bold representations using a few carefully chosen colours. Julie then turns these pieces into affordable prints, homeware and accessories.
Her personal comics work draws inspiration from the emotional and spiritual journeys we take throughout our lives, with stories featuring growth and reflection, with a focus on glancing backwards, in order to look ahead. The artwork is bold and simple, with nature playing a large part in her stories.
Bio
Julie is a self taught illustrator, comic creator and writer living in Fife, Scotland.
She has always been passionate about the natural world, and followed that interest with a degree in zoology while always maintaining art as a second love and hobby.
After a career in natural history - working in a local biological records centre and as a curator of natural history in a local museum, Julie took a career break to focus on her family, and now concentrates on her art, informed mostly by her love of nature.
She works in a studio at the bottom of her garden, and when not there is often on long walks in the countryside.
Statement
In my work as a Visual Artist I like to convey various aspects of Nature and Nurture in a very positive way.
The emotions it can bring from Peace and Tranquility to Devastation and Recovery.
I like to show the positive in each subject to help fight back against all the negativity which is going on in the world today, to, in a small way, uplift the spirits and well- being of all involved.
Being in a Collective of like- minded people can prove to be a powerful and effective tool.
Bio
I came to the Creative Arts later in life and graduated with a Batchelor of Arts in 2015.
I like to experiment with various media to create texture and interest and tell a story through a themed avenue of work.
I am lucky enough to have been awarded the Colin Dakers Memorial Purchase Prize at the Angus Alive Meffan Show in 2019 and am very honoured to have done so.
Recently I was at the unveiling of the Scotland National Mural Mosaic a 20 ft. x 11 ft. piece of outdoor Artworks containing 1800 individual paintings 3 of which I am pleased to say are my creations. The Mural can be seen at The Crickety in Brechin and is well worth making the time to see it.
There are many Murals throughout the world the subject being ROOTS the narrative being we are all CONNECTED. There are 5 Murals in the UK this is the only one in Scotland.
Statement
I have been working with the exotic genus Arisaema for several years now. I plant them each spring and watch the tubers develop. It is a joy to watch them slowly un-crumple, and grow. Each species has a different botanical architecture, and the flowers, with their highly patterned spathes are among the strangest in the world.
This work focuses on these aspects and is inspired by the plant photography of Karl Blossfeldt. I love the way Blossfeldt exploited symmetry, recurring structure and ‘natural design’. I have been exploring this in the plants that I grow, capturing their own natural design in pen and ink illustrations.
When my plants are growing, I turn them, to investigate from all sides. I love to see how they are packaged. I am endlessly fascinated with the silhouettes they form, their architecture and the patina. I want to tell part of their story, and mine through these pieces. I hope you will enjoy these aspects as much as I have in the making of these works.
Bio
Marianne Hazlewood is an award-winning botanical artist. She specialises in detail and in presenting structure and pattern, creating modern botanical illustrations in various media: watercolour, Japanese ink paste and screen print. Her work draws attention to the many benefits we can gain from interaction with, and caretaking of our natural environment.
Producing work on commission and for exhibition, Marianne regularly exhibits with the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has also exhibited with Visual Arts Scotland (VAS), Society of Scottish Artists (SSA) and Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW), at the Pittenweem Arts Festival and with the botanical societies ASBA, SBA, RHS, BISCOT, ESBA and SSBA.
Marianne had a residency in June at Marchmont House, Scotland, the birthplace of renowned artist Rory McEwen.
Awards and recognition for her work include an RHS Gold and BISCOT Gold medal, Borders Art Fair Best Stand 2023, The W Gordon Smith and Mrs Jay Gordon Smith Award at VAS REVERB 2022, and the Open Eye Gallery Exhibition Award at VAS Alight 2019. Her work is held in the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the RBGE Florilegium, Marchmont Makers Foundation and NHS Lothian Art Collection.
Statement
I am a visual artist and a researcher, using visual thinking and making to express my feelings for the world. I share my discoveries on-line, in exhibitions & workshops and in collaborations with other artists. I like to work on projects, choosing materials and processes to fit the context. I love drawing, with pencil, ink and improvised tools; colour work with paints, inks, children's art materials and natural earth colours; collage; mono-print; 3D construction with found materials; and writing. I use non-toxic materials whenever possible. I am strongly motivated by love of nature, learning from natural materials, processes and living things. I believe that visual arts can help connect people with nature and care enough to help protect it.
Bio
Jan Hendry is a Perth, Scotland, based visual artist. She graduated from University of St. Andrews in 1978 with an MA Hons degree in Geography. Later continuing her studies with an HNC Art & Design at Elmwood College, Fife, in 1997 and a BA Hons Fine Art, at DJCAD/University of Dundee, in 2003, and an MFA, DJCAD/University of Dundee, graduating 2010.
Jan Hendry was awarded the Carnegie Student Travel Award 2002, landscape project in Isle of Arran.
During her carerr she has worked in countryside and nature conservation in various roles during the 1980s up to 2020. With the development and delivery of creative workshops 2003 – 2023, e.g. ‘Wild Paint’ earth pigment sessions for all ages and abilities. Jan is a self-directed creative artist who's work explores drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, mixed media, hand-made books, soft sculpture, and engaging in collaborations.
Statement
The combination of art and science has been key to my life and work. Until 2022, I prioritised science and maintained art part-time. Having gained a master’s degree in physics, and scientific publishing experience, I pursued a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Bristol, before moving to Scotland to do postdoctoral work on neural development at the University of Edinburgh. In 2022, I left academia to make art my primary focus.
Figurative and representative drawing and painting form a large part of my artistic output. My practice asks questions about how the mind processes the world and the natural environment. Meticulous, analytical attention to detail and observation are recurring themes of my practice. Working primarily in traditional 2D materials, I’m inspired by natural forms, and the physical and biological principles that underpin their formation.
Previous work has explored the psychological effect of l’appel du vide, also known as ‘high place phenomenon’, a combination of botanical illustration with pharmacology, the experience of covid-anxiety, and number-colour synaesthesia. I am currently artist in residence for the University of Birmingham Centre for Systems Modelling in Quantitative Biomedicine, creating art in response to research into immunotherapy as a treatment for liver cancer.
Bio
Felicity Inkpen is a self-taught artist who has exhibited across Edinburgh and Bristol. Trained in physics and neuroscience, she uses her previous career as a scientist to inform her work which explores all the strange ways in which we experience the world and the disconcerting ways in which the mind works.
Working in oils, acrylic, watercolour, ink, and collage, her paintings combine figurative elements with abstract colours. Birds, insects, and natural forms are frequently occurring imagery.
Originally from the Westcountry, Felicity lives in Leith, and has her studio at Out of the Blue Drill Hall.
Statement
Within my practice, I explore memory and place within the natural world. Influenced by history and ritual, I aim to create works that evoke a sense of personal and shared sentiment within nature. Within my practice, I use various mediums, most notably watercolour and cyanotype. Working with water-based materials on paper allows me to let the materials organically take form. My work ranges from botanical imagery, repeating patterns and rock-like formations. I'm fascinated by the uncanny and eeriness of nature and draw inspiration from ancient concepts like 'thin places' and in general traditions and stories.
Bio
Josie Jones (b.1999) graduated with First class honours degree in fine art from Duncan of Jordanstone (2020) She exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries (2022) and the ‘Four Pillars’ exhibition at the Tatha Gallery (2021). She was awarded the RSA Jervis-Chalmers Prize (2022) and the Iain Eadie Award (2020). She has held various workshops including her time at the Fish Factory Creative Center in Iceland. Her work exists in private and public collections in both the UK and internationally.
Statement
My practice is changeable.
First and foremost I’m a painter, but I frequently work with clay, jewellery and crafts.
I tend to move between mediums depending what feels right in the moment, however, there are underlying themes that unite my work.
I find most inspiration in nature; colours, patterns, geometries, atmospheres, but most importantly, the profound feeling of being a part of something much greater than myself.
I’m really interested in natural healing, particularly the relationship between nature and spirituality.
At a glance, I try to make art that is fun, magical and accessible to everyone, whilst also exploring more complex and personal topics underneath the surface, such as psychedelia, mysticism and spirituality.
My current work is creating immersive paintings using fluorescent pigments, that glow under UV. The paintings change colour under different lighting conditions, bringing another layer of perspective and interactivity to the art.
Bio
Morwenna King (Wenna for short) is a young Scottish graduate artist, operating in the Dundee/Fife area.
Morwenna grew up in the beautiful Cairngorms National Park, Aberdeenshire, where her love of creating began with her mother, a successful portrait artist.
From a young age she begun to develop strong skills in observational drawing and sculpting, eventually leading her to pursue a career in the arts.
In 2019, she begun studying at Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee, graduating in 2023 with an Honours in Fine Art.
Alongside her studies, Morwenna started her own small art business, selling portraits, paintings, art prints, sculptures, jewellery and candles.
Since graduating, Morwenna has been on a journey to find her place in the art community while refining her creative skills and interests.
Statement
PURPOSEFUL – PLAYFUL POSSIBILITIES- CONNECTS
PURPOSEFUL – Louise believes her designs are more than pretty patterns they have a social role to play in supporting positive wellbeing. She loves to work on large scale projects that make a positive impact the world. She creates concepts that links with strategies to help with placemaking and wayfinding, enhancing the user experiences by creating environments that make people feel comfortable/joyful/connected. Through creative consultation, human centred design thinking she takes concepts from an idea to installation.
PLAYFUL POSSIBILITIES – Louise loves to play with combinations of colour, texture and meaningful imagery to develop new designs that are site specific to the space, place and/or organisation. She is full of ideas and possibilities!
CONNECTS – Louise helps join the dots by creating visual imagery that connects people to the world around them. She creates designs that resonate with people, making them feel connected and joyful with a sense of belonging. Through creative consultation with clients, stakeholders and service users she creates meaningful designs with impact.
Bio
Louise Kirby is a Dundee based visual artist and designer enhancing experiences and placemaking that support positive wellbeing. She creates site specific artworks and designs that transforms the experience. Each project or commision is distinct to the organisation or space with a flavour of her signature style of playful pattern, conscientious colour and meaningful references that captures a sense of place.
Louise's designs have a range of applications from applied artwork to colourful pocket parks, colourful crossings and ground graphics, decorative steel gates, interior and exterior environmental graphics and murals. Her artwork brings joy to site specific places within the public realm.
Bio
Linda Rosalia Kosciewicz was born in Scotland and trained in painting at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee followed by fine art painting conservation at Northumbria University. She worked for many years as a conservator in Australia and in Scotland for Government and also as a policy maker for national government. Her art practice encompasses photography, printmaking, mixed media, video, sound, music, and drawing.
For much of her artistic career she has focussed on people, society and the human condition and has returned again and again to the human body and face as her creative inspiration. Another passion has been the natural environment and she is a keen gardener.
In 2012 she was won the Pauline Fay Lazarus prize for work based on the human body and in 2010 and 2012 respectively, she received Visual Arts Awards from Fife Council, Scotland for photography and multi media projects. The first “Nine thoughts: A riff on fragmentation and loss” about the impacts of dementia on close family members included music written and performed by herself. Mirror Mirror considered body image and the male gaze.
She trained the camera on herself in her White Series; a series of photogravures and video based on a performance of gestures and movements inspired by women's relationship to the colour white and the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Images from this series have been exhibited throughout the UK, in France, Poland and Malaysia.
In 2011, she was a finalist in the International Photography Open Salon, Arles, France with the image “Breath of Life” from the series. That same year images from the White Series were published in the Plath Profiles and more recently again in 2019.
Dance and music were key elements of the video and photography project Transformations: Life Portraits that she carried out for the University of Edinburgh. It explored life course and movement through ageing bodies. Using four volunteers from the Lothian Birth Cohort, she choreographed a sequence of movements which she set to a deconstructed piece of music from 1936, the year of their birth.
Portraiture and culture were the subject of Culture Club which took as its subject ten members of the Scottish Arts Club, Edinburgh. In 2013 she participated in a joint project between the Scottish Poetry Library and Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop and worked with writer Dorothy Alexander to produce polymer photogravures and a video based on random experimental text inspired by The White Series.
In response to the Ukraine war she predicted a photogravure series repurposing the Greek myth of the labyrinth and the Minotaur to examine the seemingly endless cycle of suffering and violence in the human condition.
She is currently researching the stories and culture associated with nature. This work has led on from her exploration of the story of Daphne who was turned into a laurel tree.
Statement
My work is inspired by old trees, their forms, their history, and the ways that humans, animals and natural processes have shaped them. To me, trees are sculpted non-human experience, shaped in dialogue with their environment: old trees are time made wood.
I work outdoors and the studio, foraging for images amongst the trees, capturing their essence and energy then transmitting this life force through my artwork. My drawings weave together elements of the tree and the figure and are always about movement, whether that movement takes three seconds or three centuries. Trees move very slowly in comparison to us humans, and I aim to show what we share through my drawings.’
My charcoals play with ambiguity, blurring the boundaries between tree, figure and water, allowing the viewer to make their own meanings. I use random marks and textures when beginning a work to provoke pareidolia, enabling me to suggest on paper the complexity I see in life. Charcoal allows me to express both subtlety and dramatic contrast as I move between light and dark towards the powerful chiaroscuro I strive for. There's also something poetic about depicting living wood with its carbonised self.
By drawing I seek to communicate the experience of seeing via the transference of complex three-dimensional perception into two-dimensional mark making. The process feels akin to sculpture; carving out contour lines, adding and erasing deep layers of charcoal, scraping and wiping oil paint to reveal light and form.
Drawing is my dialogue with the observed world and through dialogue with trees, my work asks not just what they look like, but also what looking at trees can tell us about ourselves.
Bio
Tansy Lee Moir grew up in the Peak District in Derbyshire. She gained a BA(Hons) in 3D Design: Wood, Metal & Ceramics from Manchester Metropolitan University.
After graduating she toured the UK for three years as a puppet maker and performer, then moved to Scotland in 1994 to pursue a career as a Community Artist, going on to study Community Education at Post Graduate level at Edinburgh University. For 25 years Tansy used creativity as a medium to support marginalised people in community development projects throughout Central Scotland.
In 2008 she returned to drawing in her new studio at Edinburgh Palette and established her current practice, making work about old trees in charcoal, pastels and oil. Now based in in South Queensferry, Tansy works full-time as an artist and educator, exhibiting and teaching across the UK.
Since 2011 Tansy has had seven solo exhibitions and shown in and curated numerous group shows. Her work is in private collections around the UK, Europe and the USA.
Statement
I am a landscape painter, with a love of walking and history, and I am found, in most weathers, in the hills and glens of Scotland.
My on-site ‘Plein Air’ oil paintings are an attempt to convey “a way of seeing”, to quote John Berger, a feeling, a sense of belonging to and being part of that landscape. A connection and experience to be shared.
My love of big paintings is not restricted by this approach; instead, I have adapted my easel and created a carrying method. I also regularly combine my sketches, memories and love of paint onto canvas and board in the studio.
Recognising my own need to walk, breath and create, I continue to explore our remote countryside, and my practice continues to develop.
In my role as an Artist, I regularly lead creative workshops, based on local history, the outdoors, painting and drawing in a playful and supportive approach. I support and mentor various young people as they start their creative journeys and I am passionate about creativity in all forms, as an important part of our wellbeing.
Bio
Astrid Leeson graduated from DJCAD, Dundee in 2009 BA (Fine Art) and in 2017 with a MFA Art and Humanities (Distinction), and is still based in Dundee.
Leeson was selected for New Contemporaries (2010) and most recently as part of a curated exhibition from Gallery 201 in Kyoto Japan (2023). She has continued to show in various group shows and has had her paintings selected for various exhibitions in Scotland including RGI, RSA ,SSA exhibitions- where she won a solo show at the Scottish Arts Club ( March 2024) Her work can currently be found in Frames Gallery Perth, House of Bruar Gallery, Eion Stewarts, Stonehaven and in several private collections.
Her creative practice has also included engaging community work, and according to evidence, has inspired people of all generations to learn and engage with past heritage, contemporary culture and anticipate potential futures. She is a Director of Creative Catalyst Scotland- Supporting young people into Creative Careers. She passionately believes that creativity impacts on all aspects of our lives.
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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