Until recently I have rarely included man made elements in my paintings.
In Orkney there are poignant reminders of abandoned crofts, gable ends and dry stane dykes. In Sutherland, where my ancestors came from – shielings and blackhouse walls, field boundaries, mounds and cairns – moving evidence of hundreds of generations of labour in the Straths they were cleared from.

In Srathnaver, Sutherland, descendants of the birch trees that grew around the homes twist and regrow from amongst ancient root systems, the paths around the toonships and stepping stones across the burns remain as they were.

It is not hard to imagine the lives that might have been lived there and in abandoned Orkney crofts.