Ebbing Tide, Estuary, Luce Bay, Galloway Scotland. Landscape Painting by Victoria Orr Ewing

Ebb & Flood

The Fine Art Society Edinburgh - 2019

Landscape Paintings of The West Coast of Scotland

The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh presents an exhibition of Scottish landscape paintings by Victoria Orr Ewing (b.1962). Her pictures depict remote crofts and unsullied vistas of Galloway, the Highlands and the west coast of Scotland all dwarfed by churning, luminescent skies.

Victoria lived and painted in Andalucia, Spain for sixteen years, drawn to its wild landscapes and changing light. On her return to Britain this emphasis remained in her art, emboldened by the dark, complex hues of Scotland’s weather. 

 Ebb & Flood is a collection of work that makes up Victoria’s first exhibition in a major gallery since returning from Spain. In October she went to the West Coast of Scotland. To Galloway, where Victoria grow up, The Isle of Mull, a place she has visited and painted for many years. Finally, travelling via Ardnamurchan to Arisaig. Another breathtaking area with white sand beaches and turquoise seas.  There, she knew she would find the kind of landscapes and conditions that would inspire this new collection for the Edinburgh gallery. 

In October the Moorlands, Machair grasses and Brackens are turning their winter colours and the weather is changeable. In her work we see the turquoise sea intensified by dark brooding skies. Hues of green with copper and gold highlighted by a shard of sunlight breaking through a dense sky across a wild and unkempt landscape. The presence of a solitary house or seemingly futile fence evokes feelings of vulnerability in the vastness of nature, highlighting our small but significant part within it.

The title Ebb & Flood comes from observing the changing tides in the river estuaries and sea lochs. The high and low tides change the appearance of the Scottish landscape to such a major way.

She paints primarily in oil on large-scale canvas, mostly from sketches done in front of the subject and often finished from memory. She joins a long tradition of Scottish landscape painters that began with Alexander Nasmyth in the late 18th century. By capturing nature’s overwhelming power and Scotland’s underpopulated landscape, Victoria uses the scale of her pictures to envelope the viewer.

“I would like my work to express our vulnerability in the face of the vastness of nature, to feel small and yet be a part of it. I also intend it to be about hope, the melancholy of place and hope in the future. The sunlight in the distance or breaking through the clouds. A remote house against the large sky, a road or fence suggests to me our ephemeral nature and fragility".

To enquire about any of the paintings by Victoria Orr Ewing in Ebb & Flood, please contact Victoria by clicking the button below and completing the enquiry form.