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Dugald MacInnes Statement |
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Further Information from the Artist
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In my early days working as a mosaic artist, I found myself drawn
towards natural materials, like the ancient stones of my native
Argyll, especially slate, a beautiful and seductive material,
occurring in greys, blues, browns, purples, yellows and even white,
if one knows where to look. Scottish slate has been tortured in its
long existence by powerful orogenic and tectonic forces; folded,
stretched, faulted and squashed. It is a coarse material compared to
the beautiful fissile product from countries such as Poland, Spain
and France where fine, svelte sheets are extracted. Yet, it was
those very geological forces that resulted in such a variety of
forms - long thin fingers, sinuous slabs, fragmented pieces, and
long narrow tongues often shot-through with veins of calcite and
quartz - dazzling whites, golden reds and rich creams. To an artist
this material is extremely versatile to work with, to handle, slice,
cut and snip; to place contiguously, with care and sensitivity, into
soft sensuous beds of dark cement. The stone that I use comes from a
number of redundant quarries in places with good Scottish names such
as Aberfoyle, Luss, Balachulish and Easdale. It is the waste that I
rummage through, the discarded piles that, in places, are washed by
the sea, the stones softened and rounded by wave action and the iron
pyrites broken down into constituent parts resulting in haloes and
streaks of sulphurous yellows and iron-rich reds. Most of these old
quarries are on the mainland but around Oban on the Argyll coast
there are the 'slate islands' of Seil, Easdale and Luing all bearing
the scars of a once thriving industry. The slates of Argyll are 500
to 600 million years old. They originated from fine mud deposited in
a deep ocean basin. Deprived of oxygen, they developed into a dark
organic-free sludge and from this, through the processes of further
deposition, compression and heat, slate was born. Subsequent uplift
and folding on a regional scale brought these rocks to the surface.
Younger lava flows, weathering and the actions of the ice sheets all
contributed to the present topography that prevails in that corner
of the Scottish coast. Looking back on my childhood I now realise
the fundamental role that the landscape of Argyll has played on my
development as an artist. I was always fascinated by rock
formations, the interplay of folds with faults and spent many happy
hours searching amongst screes for quartz crystals, amethysts and
agates. The views from my parents' home were studied and sketched;
to the south across Loch Awe, its islands and soft skylines; to the
north where the mountainous mass of Ben Cruachan dominates, was
recorded and confined to memory. For a number of years in the 1980's
I stopped working in mosaic, when my life was overtaken by the
pursuit of keen interests I had developed in geology and
archaeology. During this period, I continued to draw, often working
in situ on the coast of Argyll. I returned to mosaic in the late
1990's when my close friends, Jim and Alice Johnston, opened a
beautiful little art gallery in the village of Forteviot, Scotland's
first capital. I owe many thanks to them for their encouragement.
For the first time in my art, scientific interests and a long
relationship with the landscape came together in my art. It is
within those contexts that my work continues to develop. A degree
course in Earth Science at the Open University in the 1980's
provided a sound experience in geology allowing a fuller
understanding of the underlying structures and origins of the land
beneath our feet. We can look upon the landscape and appreciate its
beauty in terms of form and visual element. How much more rewarding
it is to be aware of the processes that formed the landscape and
that continue to exert change, albeit at a barely discernable pace.
The mountains of Argyll, formed to a large extent from marine muds
and sands, are being gently eroded, their sediments carried to the
seas to be deposited once more, perhaps again to be part of some
future mountain range. Such vast cycles and timescales can make our
short existence seem so insignificant. An aspect of wandering in the
hills and mountains of Argyll was the occasional discovery of
archaeological remains in the form of often barely discernable
foundations, field boundaries and piles of stone. It was another
side to the landscape that I felt should be explored further. After
all mankind has also shaped our scenery. I was introduced to
archaeology from an early age. Close to the village where I was grew
up is the Kilmartin Valley, rich in Prehistoric material. The
chambered cairns, stone circles and megaliths were known to me but
only in vague terms. In 1990 I began a three-year course in field
archaeology at the University of Glasgow. After graduation I found
myself drawn to archaeology more than the geology. I think that this
was because of the human aspect of the former; an understanding of
our history provides us with a grasp of the present and a sense of
what we wish to achieve in the future. A recurring theme in my art
is the notion of megaliths in relation to astral bodies. The
alignment of those massive standing stones with the sun, moon and
stars etc. may have been a form of primitive calendar signifying
important ritualistic events to their Prehistoric peoples. I have
been directing a major field survey of a Highland glen for the past
twelve years. Concomitant with the collation of finds is an ongoing
documentary research programme in an attempt to link former
inhabitants with the archaeological features on the ground. My
mosaics then are an expression of this bond that I have with the
history and the landscape of Scotland, especially those small
corners for which I have a strong affinity. I attempt to express the
geological forces that formed the landscape, the natural processes,
in their constant and inexorable way, changing that landscape and
the manner in which society developed and evolved since the retreat
of the great ice sheets some ten thousand years ago. It was George
Garson who introduced me to mosaics. He was one of Britain's leading
mosaic artists from the 1960's to the 1980's. His arrival at the
Glasgow School of Art as Senior Lecturer of the Department of Mural
Design and Stained Glass coincided with me joining that department
as a second-year student. The emotional impact experienced on first
seeing one of his small slate and sandstone pieces cannot be over
stated. That moment lives with me yet. In that instant it was as if
a great weight lifted from me. Here at last was the avenue by which
I could express my relationship with the geology and landscape with
which I was so familiar. His introduction to his 'domestic panels'
as he calls them, brought direction and substance to my art and thus
influenced the course of my life.
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