Scottish Memory Series

My Scottish Memory Series was inspired by my Grandfather and Grandmother’s (Albert MacLeod and Margaret Gillespie) trip to Scotland in 1971. One of my Grandfather’s motivations for that trip was to locate the descendants of our distant relatives Malcolm MacLeod (1834 - 1879) and Ann MacIver (1830 – 1926) from Isle of Lewis. Years ago my Grandmother gave me my Grandfather’s travel diaries and photographs from this journey. These diaries have since motivated me to produce a series of encaustic and oil landscapes of different regions of Scotland and some of the places my Grandparents visited, Aberdeen, Inverness, Stornoway and Skye. The reason for calling these paintings a ‘memory series’ is two fold, first, to honour the memory of my Grandparents and second to celebrate my Scottish-Norse ancestry. Technically the work was derived from photographs in oil and encaustic on canvas and panel, The palette was inspired by the cool hues of the North Atlantic Ocean, with the exception of some images from the Northern islands of Orkney and the Shetlands where the light and sunsets can be very dramatic because of their latitude.

Some of the work can be seen at http://www.macleod9.com/scotland/index.htm

Avalon Peninsula Series

My Avalon Peninsula Series are landscapes derived from areas I visited around the Avalon Peninsula in April of 2005 such as Pouch Cove, Red Head, Black Head, Bell Island, Portugal Cove, Cape Spear, Signal Hill etc… the names are as dramatic and enigmatic as the locations. This work was not done on site but rather from memory. It is an approach I have developed since my experience in New Mexico http://www.macleod9.com/taos/index.htm for my Taos Memory Series, which came out of necessity as weather can shift and change suddenly, and Newfoundland was no exception. I enjoyed the constant shifting drama of sea and landscape over the course of my stay. I have tried to make these paintings emanate these textural and atmospheric changes that invite the viewer in as a witness to the effects of snow, sleet, heavy rain, wind, calm sea, pounding waves, clear sky and sunshine on the Newfoundland landscape. This work is available for viewing on my Raza Group website at http://www.larazagroup.com/pouchcove_scott_ap.html

Dedication

This exhibition is dedicated to my late Grandfather, Albert Murray MacLeod and Grandmother Margaret Gillespie from whom I inherited my desire to know where I have come from and for my love of history..

I would also like to thank the following sponsors for their kind support Peter McAuslan, Margo Pollock from McAuslan Brewing, and the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal.