Whitehouse Gallery
47 St Mary Street | Kirkcudbright
Dumfries & Galloway | Scotland | DG6 4DU
2nd May – 20th June 2026
Tender Light
The Tender Light paintings have their origins in a period of research for a 2023 commission within the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital’s Family Rooms, offering me an opportunity to return to one of my earliest aesthetic influences; a childhood fascination with the work of Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen.
These works unfold as imagined, dreamlike landscapes, imbued with a quiet stillness and layered with delicate ornamentation. They invite a slower, more attentive way of looking. Rather than conveying a fixed narrative, they evoke a mood or atmosphere, leaving space for personal reflection, perhaps echoing my own childhood impulse to disappear into Nielsen’s imagined worlds.
Colour is approached intuitively. Soft, muted tones suggest calm and restoration, while richer hues and unexpected combinations introduce a sense of wonder and enchantment. In this way, colour becomes a means of shaping emotional and psychological space, guiding how the paintings are experienced as much as how they are seen
Title: Not a Leaf Stirred
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: H30cm x W25cm
Date: 2026
Title: Pink Sapling
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: H30cm x W25cm
Date: 2026
Title: Broken Bough
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: H30cm x W25cm
Date: 2026
Title: Drifting Petals, Golden Crown
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: H30cm x W25cm
Date: 2026
Title: Under a Gilded Canopy
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: H30cm x W25cm
Date: 2026
Title: Who Listens Like Lichen Listens
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: H30cm x W35cm
Date: 2026
Title: Tender Light
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: H120cm x W120cm
Date: 2023
Title: The Glade Held it’s Breath
Medium: Oil on Birch Ply
Dimensions: H30cm x W40cm
Date: 2026
Title: Tender Light II
Medium: Oil on Birch Ply
Dimensions: H30cm x W40cm
Date: 2026