Artist Inspired by February in a Tin Hut on Iona Exhibits at Top Event
Storms, seafarers and wildlife inspire new body of work
A winter month in a shepherd’s hut on Iona has inspired a series of artworks which will go on show at Scotland’s premier open studios event.
Sarah Keast was offered the chance to swap her warm home in Moniave, for a wheeled tin hut close to the beach on the island’s remote northern edge for the whole of this year’s wet and stormy February.
The experience was so powerful that it has inspired an entire new body of work which can be seen by the public during the Spring Fling open studios weekend, which features 94 studios all across Dumfries and Galloway from 23-25 May.
Sarah said: “I love the sea and this was a fabulous opportunity to spend an entire month in one of the most dramatic places you could possibly imagine.
“Sometimes the weather was gentle but the storms were quite spectacular, and because the hut was made of tin you could hear every hailstone as it rattled on the roof and the walls.
“Iona is such a remarkable place, as a holy island inhabited by early Christian monks and as a place which attracted raiders and warriors. My time there led to a whole new body of work – inspired by the ocean, the creatures which live there and the people who venture across it.”
Sarah, who is a printmaker and mixed media artist, has previously worked on projects about the 19th century whalers who faced hunger, shipwreck and drowning in hostile Arctic waters to catch creatures we see as intelligent mammals, but they thought of as no more than big fish.
She also spent a year on Orkney, where she developed an abiding fascination for the Norsemen who crossed from Scandinavia to conquer and settle.
In a previous career she worked as a conservation manager before retraining as an artist, and this love of the natural world shines through in all of Sarah’s work.
Indeed, one of its most compelling features is that it captures so much about the beauty of the natural world with a deceptive simplicity that is filled with reverence but never sentimental.
Leah Black, Spring Fling Director, said: “Sarah’s residency on Iona was truly inspirational – and the experience has helped her create some fabulous new work.
“We hope it will encourage some of our visitors to spend time exploring the wonders of the Scottish islands. And we would, of course, be delighted to welcome people from the west coast and the isles to come and join us in Dumfries and Galloway for Spring Fling.”
The Iona residency was supported by a South of Scotland Artists and Craft Makers award (a collaboration between Dumfries & Galloway Council, Scottish Borders Council and DG Unlimited in partnership with Creative Scotland) and by St Cuthbert’s Mill.
The residency opportunity was created by the Iona Hostel owner John MacLean who Sarah says is: “A wonderfully creative and interesting man with vision and understanding of creative processes.”
John decided to offer artists and writers the chance to have an extended stay on Iona when the hostel is quieter out of season.
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