Look out for a new face popping up at Howe Street’s Bon Papillon.
Artist Senja Bownes (already a regular exhibitor) is joining curator Ingrid Nilsson as a fellow artist-in-residence from now on, and will work here on her own projects from time to time as well as offering oil-painting workshops to the public.
Nilsson anticipates creative sparks, as the two artists' styles are 'like chalk and cheese'.
Hopefully, the cheese won’t interfere with Stuart Allan's chefing in the gallery’s front-of-house café.
'I have a passion for wild places,' she writes, 'and travel throughout the mainland and islands of Scotland either on my motorbike or in my campervan; hiking, sailing or kayaking to reach locations away from the “beaten track”.
'I have refined a collection of specially compacted painting materials which enable me to paint directly on location wherever possible. I feel that this lends a freshness and personal quality to my work, allowing it to become not just a painting, but a very real part of my adventures.’
Partly because of the photograph below, Bownes has developed a great affection and respect for the (windswept) 19th-century Scottish land and seascape artist William McTaggart (1835–1910). She has been visiting and reinterpreting many of the places he depicted during his career since, and some of these works now form the basis of her new solo exhibition running at Bon Papillon – Macrihanish, McTaggart and Me.
The show continues at 15 Howe Street until 12 October and you can follow more of her projects across Scotland as they unfold or blow away either on Facebook or on Twitter.