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Chasing Light

Chasing Light
1st March - 1st April 2023

Beth Robertson Fiddes, an extraordinary landscape painter who captures the drama and intense patterns of mountain, pool and coast of the north west highlands of Scotland, opens our solo exhibition schedule for 2023. Her large, almost mystical vistas are not the work of fiction, but of Beth hiking for many miles in the wild and often hidden places to capture the essence of the land and the sea. A land near where she was raised and has now returned to live and work. This collection focuses on the quality of light that is so inspirational in her part of the Highlands. Many ideas are formulated and her journeys to chosen summits or areas of coastline are carefully timed and planned. Beth takes into account the time of day, angle of light, potential for a large Atlantic swell and crashing waves, all of which come to nothing without that elusive light. Alongside this spectacular landscape, there is dramatic weather that can present days of dark and drizzly frustration, but also points of perfection which no amount of planning could conjure up. Over the years Beth has learned to follow the light and see where it takes her - “The paintings in this collection are based on those days when the light was on my side featuring recognisable landmarks of the North West, Cul Mor and Sula Bheinn alongside seascapes and studies of the shoreline nearby.”


Exhibition Images

(click on thumbnails to view - please check with gallery on availability of work)

Beth Robertson Fiddes

Beth Robertson Fiddes graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1995 with BA (hons), won The RSA Benno Schotz award in 1997 and won second place in the 2011 Jolomo Bank of Scotland competition – the largest Art prize in Scotland.

Her return to her Highland roots has deepened her continuing artistic exploration of land and sea. A move in early 2013 to Inverbroom, in Wester Ross, took her back to where she feels she really belongs. She now has more time to spend in the surroundings that have inspired so much of her work.

“Returning to favourite childhood haunts and seeing them afresh has given my painting a new dimension allowing memories to combine with new sights and experiences.”

Indeed, her work – in acrylic, ink and oil and also paper – vividly evokes the fleeting moment of a surging tide crashing onto headland or hissing through rock pools, the sharp intensity of a shaft of brilliant sunshine through a swirling cloud of mist, rain or spindrift, at the same time raising the possibility of a primeval landscape.

Raised in Tiree, Beth has a deep understanding of how rapidly changing and often extreme weather patterns are an integral part of the rugged beauty of the north-west Highlands.

Her work has always been based on observation and drawing outdoors is fundamental to her working methods.

“I find more and more now that I want to retain the spontaneity of the initial impressions and sketches in the final pieces.”

There has been a steady growing recognition for an artist with a unique eye and the ability to transfer onto canvas – on a grand scale when necessary – the colours, textures and moods of the dramatic landscape around her.

“My work has sometimes been described as having an otherwo ... Read More