About.
Shirley Kirkcaldy [SWAc] is a contemporary landscape artist based on Dartmoor in Devon, whose work is deeply rooted in the wild moorlands and rugged coastlines of Devon and Cornwall. Emotionally charged, her expressive paintings in oil and mixed media capture the spirit of the land and sea, combining distinctive painting techniques, mark making, colour and texture.
Observation is key to her painting practice and sketching and drawing in the landscape is her starting point, which later inform paintings back in her studio. Working on a number of pieces at the same time, using oil or mixed media, she layers texture and colour to evoke atmosphere and emotion, scratching and scraping back into the paint to reveal what lies beneath – much like the landscape itself. Driven by an intuitive desire to reveal the light and space of the natural landscape, her paintings are not just visual records but interpretive responses — blending memory, sketches, and studio experimentation, to seek something ‘beyond the obvious’.
Shirley's work has been exhibited in London and across the Southwest, is represented by galleries in Devon, Dorset and Oxfordshire and held in private collections in USA, Singapore, New Zealand, UK and Europe. She is an elected Academician with the Southwest Academy of Fine and Applied Art [SWAc] and teaches through a programme of workshops and individual tuition.
For those who want the details you can find Shirley’s biography and exhibition list here, or to see her homeware collection you can visit her Shop here.
Artist’s Statement.
“Drawn to the edge of places where light and atmosphere feature significantly, my work is dominated by a sense of place and time where final images tell a story, to convey the spirit of the natural landscape.”
Memories are woven into a landscape and mine are of a childhood spent by the sea. Now living and working on Dartmoor and drawing inspiration from the moorlands and coastlines of Devon and Cornwall, each change of season offers an opportunity for me to explore their beauty and remoteness.
My painting practice, whilst often experimental, is grounded and coherent. Synonymous with light, atmosphere and energy, paintings are rich in personal responses, searching for something more than the obvious and overriding the need for direct representation. This allows a freedom to interpret and explore new ways of expressing ideas through the physicality of paint and other media, whilst also capturing an authenticity borne of a specific location.
Walking and drawing in the landscape allows me to respond what I see in its contours, intangible spaces and fractured light. Working in a variety of media, images that exist in actuality are transposed as reflections of a place and time and, as paintings emerge, they tend to move further away from documentary and more towards anonymity. Thus I am inviting the viewer to form their own interpretation whilst still conveying a personal significance.
