Earlier this year, I received a Creative Scotland Open Fund Bursary to research and develop ideas based on my family. I spent time gathering information in the places I was brought up – Kilmarnock, Cults, Aberdeen and Banff – and in my mother’s current house in Edinburgh.
I made trips to these places over the summer and filled a sketchbook with drawings of parks and other outdoor spaces I spent time in as a child. The secret nature of enclosed spaces fascinates me. In my mother’s house I continued this theme, drawing the rooms where family celebrations take place as well as some precious objects which are small enclosed spaces in their own right.
I have since used many of these sketches, as well as memory and imagination, to inform a series of oil paintings in my studio in Edinburgh. I would like to thank Creative Scotland for this opportunity.