SELECTED WORK
click to enlarge
Close to the Water's Edge
To my mind, my painting and fly fishing have become closely linked over the years. An uncle’s gift of an old split cane fishing rod, along with my father’s work in the Nature Conservancy Council, led to an enthusiastic interest in wildlife and the natural environment. Therefore, it was a natural step that landscape would become the dominant subject of my painting.
The sense of time is lost, in a day, pursuing either occupation... tramping over the moors to fish various hill lochs has led me to views of some of the most powerful and breathtaking landscapes in the Highlands and Islands. I always carry a camera and small sketchbook so that I can break off at any time to gather source material, which is then worked up into finished pieces, later in the studio.
The obvious link between my two obsessions is that they both take me to ideal locations which inspire my work. For example, a trip in 2008 to Arran and Islay, gathering source material for an exhibition, led to a wonderful day’s fishing on lovely Loch Gorm, Islay. In contrast some of my best work of recent times has come from annual fishing holidays to Lewis and Harris.
Over the past ten years or so, I have come to believe that something deeper than this is going on. When casting a line or painting, I feel that somehow I myself am tuning into the forces and cycles that drive our natural environment and that a kind of unconscious dialogue is going on between myself and the
elemental world.
While fishing, I am directly involved and participating in this world, perhaps in a way that the modern world has largely left behind it. A fisherman becomes part of the natural food chain much as the early hunter gatherers were. For me, experiencing this in the splendour of the North West of Scotland is a very powerful thing.
When I paint, I think that I am trying to interpret and refine what these experiences mean. Much of what is seen and felt in this environment is very difficult to pass on to others verball.
So I find painting is the ideal medium to express the inspiration, pleasure and awe that the Scottish landscape has brought to my life and that quite simply, is what drives me as a painter.
Duncan Currie, Sandbank Studio, Isle of Skye