BETH ROBERTSON FIDDES : TIDAL LIGHT

Beth Robertson Fiddes spent her early childhood on Tiree and, after a spell in Kansas, moved to Kingussie in the Highlands.
She studied at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating with a degree in sculpture in 1995. Since then she has continued to
draw and paint, travelling around the West Highands and Islands of Scotland to collect source material and sketches which
are then worked up into larger pieces in her studio.

Beth’s interest lies in the passage of time and our experience of looking at land and sea, during which certain things
seem transient, fleeting and elusive, alive almost. With tides, splashes, breaking waves and angry waters she captures very
specific moments, and yet fills them with a sense of nature’s magnitude and endurance over time. It is this combination
of the ephemeral moments of human experience and the almost unimaginable time of nature that is so beautifully
conveyed in Beth’s paintings. Her method of working on the paintings reflect her interest in continuity and change, and
being both in the moment and part of a larger evolving process. She adds paper and paint, washes parts off, sands things
back time after time until she’s happy with the emerging painting.

This group of ten new paintings explores the unique tidal light of the West coast where Beth lives and works, and is as
much an outcome of her adult experience of living and working in the Highlands, as it is her childhood spent on Tiree,
playing outside in the cold rain, sleet and snow, finding warmth in the rockpools. A childhood of half understood words,
stories and songs about lost cities under the sea, kelpies and child stealing fairies. Ominous thoughts on even the sunniest
of days.