‘Look Again’ is a collaborative exhibition by local artists Aimee Coulshed and Tamsin Gilham, capturing the ephemeral atmosphere and ever-changing weather of the surrounding landscape through watercolour paintings, botanical prints, and textile art.
Aimee Coulshed
"Her sophisticated and sensitive response to colour in all of her designs brought the judges to a standstill at New Designers Part 1 in June 2019. Infused with love for the Scottish landscape she inhabits, Aimee's designs have a distinctive style and rich elemental quality that makes her a natural choice for 'one to watch".
Colour in Design Award, 2019
"I am inspired by my own photography and observations - mainly of the landscape of the Scottish Highlands, often at dawn and dusk when there is a unique range of colours and a moodiness in the weather. Looking at a range of artists and designers also helps place my work into context and makes me feel more comfortable and inspired to experiment.
I enjoy the journey of working out and playing around with colour, texture and composition. Seeing the final outcome coming together and adding the final details is also very satisfying."
Tamsin Gilham
Now living and working on the shores of Loch Broom, Tamsin graduated from Central St Martins School of Art in London. Whilst raising a beautiful family she shared her passion for Art with students as the Head of Art in a Secondary School in Somerset, spending almost every school holiday with her family on the West Coast of Scotland. After 20 years in schools, the pull of the Highlands became too strong and she left teaching still considering it to be the ‘best career in the world’ but excited to be able to spend time on her own painting practice. Tamsin works from her 57-5 studio at Blarnalearoch, always striving to capture a fleeting moment in time on the loch.
‘In love’ and inspired by the ever changing weather, light and colour of the landscape surrounding her, she uses inks and relief printing techniques in her artwork. Being an obsessive collector of shore treasure, each piece is overprinted with a natural element growing or found at the time the painting was created; sometimes barnacles or seaweed, sometimes gorse or fern. This gives her work an additional provenance but also a pattern-like quality.
The date of painting is torn from the weekly Ross-shire journal and is incorporated into the work, this same paper is often collaged onto the paintings, creating texture with the printed words telling ‘tales’ of this wonderful part of the world.
