Moray art duo showcase area's desolate beauty in Cabrach Reconnections Exhibition
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A LOCAL art duo who have spent the summer exploring the desolate beauty of the Cabrach will show their resulting work in an exhibition starting this month.
Moray-based artists Lynne Strachan and Mary Bourne developed the Cabrach Reconnections arts project this year with support from Creative Scotland.
Over the summer they explored the area on foot – alone, together and guided by people with local knowledge.
They got chatting to many people along the way as well as with participants at arts events they organised, which included a silver jewellery workshop, a metal casting workshop, and photography and sketching walks.
Since then Lynne and Mary, both long fascinated by the remote, depopulated area, have been developing artwork in response to what they have learned.
This includes stories of the families who once lived there, the farms and businesses they ran, the reasons they left, the memories they still hold, and the coming of windfarms.
Mary, who lives at Milltown of Auchindoun, studied sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art and was elected an Academician of The Royal Scottish Academy in 2012.
She said: "This was a project born in lockdown.
"Lynne and I have several decades of experience of making art for public places between us and have worked together before, but we have always designed to other people's briefs and in places distant from where we live.
"Lockdown gave us the opportunity to take stock and we decided we would like to write our own brief and work together in a place that has long fascinated us. We are very grateful to Creative Scotland for supporting us to do this."
The project's aim is to find ways for people to reconnect with each other through arts and to get out and enjoy the Cabrach's scenery and wildlife.
The artists hope their exhibition will promote the Cabrach and its stories further afield.
Lynne, from Elgin, is a Fine Art graduate of Moray School of Art UHI and has worked in industry for more than 20 years completing commissions for public places, as well as undertaking residencies and exhibiting at home and abroad.
She said: "The work has been influenced by the materials people have left behind which are slowly being reclaimed by nature.
"We have been experimenting with fabrics, glass, cast iron, copper and silver to develop works which will hopefully bring renewed attention to areas that have otherwise been lost or forgotten.
"Working with the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Northlands Creative and Vanilla Ink has given us the opportunity to experiment with new materials and learn complex processes from these highly knowledgeable teams."
The Cabrach Reconnections Exhibition will run at The Cabrach Trust, Inverharroch Steading, Lower Cabrach, from October 29 to November 1, between 10am to 4pm. It will then move to Glenlivet Estate Visitor Centre for November 6 and 7.
