Alchemy
A collaborative exhibition of paint, poetry and place.
About The Exhibition
This unique collaboration between artist Rebecca Styles and poet Heather Mackay Young brings “paint, poetry and place” together in the extraordinary location of Uig’s semi-derelict Baile na Cille Church on the Isle of Lewis.
Rebecca Styles’ series of large-scale paintings have been created onsite at Baile na Cille Church over several weeks, in the company of Scottish poet Heather Mackay Young, whose writings respond to the immediate environment and artwork being created there. With the decaying beauty of the ancient church in mind, the generations that have worshiped there over the centuries, and the relentless and unforgiving seasonality of the Western Isles, the work of both these artists reflects the circularity of all things – of life, death and rebirth.
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Rebecca Styles
Rebecca Styles was born in West Yorkshire and currently works from her studio in the Outer Hebrides on the West Coast of Scotland. She is a recipient of a Visual Artist and Craft Makers (VACMA) Award, and a Creative Scotland Artist Bursary for her work involving local raw pigments and traditional paint making. She studied at Bradford College of Art, and later Somerset College of Art &Technology and Falmouth College of Art.
Heather Young
Heather Mackay Young lives and writes on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, known in Gaelic as ‘Eilean Fraoch,’ which translates as ‘The Heather Isle’. She is an apprentice to her homeland, a waymaker and pathfinder in a Celtic lineage of nature based people who drew upon the wisdom of water, rock, plants and stories, to find beauty, meaning and wonder in the everyday. heathermackayyoung.com
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Rebecca Styles
Heather Mackay Young
Reviews
An invitation to meditate at the invisible and the eternal – perfect.