Perthshire Colour

Lorna C Radbourne, Angela Thomson & Rochelle McConnachie

5 September - 13 October

Another year another Perthshire Open Studios which takes up the first nine days of our six week exhibition “Perthshire Colour”. As I do each year I’ve invited some of the local artists to participate in the Open Studios event from the gallery.

This year we have Lorna Radbourne who due to a family wedding will only be attending for the first 5 days of the event. So if you want to catch her stained glass or painting demonstrations you’ll need to pop in during the first few days of the open studios. Rochelle McConnachie living just 15 minutes away will be in and out throughout the event, I’m sure we’ll be able to persuade her to have a working painting on the easel throughout the event. With my workshop based in the gallery I’m planning to work on some upcycling projects, chalk paint and upholstery, I’ll also be making some OS map lampshades and who knows what else. We’ll put some dates and times on the website to make sure you know when each artist will be about.

Lorna has been a favourite of the gallery almost as long as she has been participating in our exhibitions and regularly helps hang our exhibitions and window displays. Having worked in stained glass for 30 years making traditional and contemporary windows (including one for St Chad’s College, Durham University), indoor and outdoor sculptural pieces, hangings, jewellery and paints in mixed media. As she had her first solo exhibition immediately preceding this one we hope to still have some spectacular pieces to exhibit.

Rochelle exhibits with Artisanand and Fortingall Art. I first approached Rochelle about representing her after seeing her work on the stage at Fortingall and being struck by its beauty. While Rochelle has many painting styles she’s probably best known for her acrylic on canvas birches, many having a simple white background. It first struck me as being almost Japanese but there is certainly something incredibly pleasing about white space in Rochelle’s work. Not many artists are brave enough to paint open spaces.

My work was one of the reasons I opened Artisanand, to have somewhere I could exhibit whatever I felt like making, I’m very easily distracted and vary between painting, textiles, clay, jewellery, furniture upcycling, linocut, cyanotype and the kitchen sink too. Not all of it makes it into the gallery, it has to pass a strict gallery fit ruling. I can overrule but usually choose not to.

The gallery favourites continue with new work from Lorna Radbourne’s stained, hot and painted glass, Seatree Argyll’s ceramics, Laura Wood’s wire trees and chicken wire sculpture and Angela Thomson’s Harris Tweed cookies and so much more…