Beth Davidson Blog Post

We were delighted to welcome Beth Davidson to work with us on a short-term contract in April and May in the role of Collection Assistant. Working as part of the collection team, Beth was given the task of reviewing artists and artworks from our collection, helping us update our records.

We invited Beth to share with us an artist and example of their work that they enjoyed discovering, and to share an insight here as part of our blog post series.

Image: Beth Davidson

Hi I’m Beth, I’m 20 and I live in Dunfermline. Working with Art in Healthcare was my first experience of working and it has been a great opportunity.  It was really interesting to learn about the different styles of artwork and the artists who created them. I enjoyed taking art at Highschool and since then I gained a few qualifications and developed new skills while I was at college. I’ve enjoy staying creative by visiting museums and art galleries, and sometimes I like to sketch and make felt characters. Recently I had been volunteering at a food pantry and I’m now looking for future opportunities working with people as part of a creative team or in a practical way to learn new skills.

While I was doing my research on some of the artists, Carolyn Burchell’s work was one of the works I was drawn to the most. For me, Burchell’s art gives off a happy and peaceful feeling, with mostly views of natural areas such as parks and forests with a dreamy style. Though her use of colour is very colourful and bold the work still gives a relaxed and calming feeling.

Trees often appear in Burchell’s work of more natural scenes. Different shades of green are used a lot including other bright earthy colours, particularly on the thick, leafy crowns of the trees.

Carolyn Burchell was born in Edinburgh and studied at Edinburgh College of Art, before later going on to Glasgow School of Art, with a 25-year gap in between. Since then, she has worked with Artlink and on various mural and painting commissions. Burchell has exhibited throughout Scotland since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art and has staged solo shows in many venues over the years.

Burchell’s journeys across Scotland and Europe including in her home city of Edinburgh have always informed her artwork, giving her a different focus on woodland, parks, gardens, architecture and urban areas. Her visits to the Scottish Highlands are what inspired her artwork to take on a dream-like atmosphere. She has been influenced by Surrealist and romantic landscape painting as well as literature.

Image: ‘Bar’ by Carolyn Burchell

One of Burchell’s artworks I researched which is part of the AIH collection was ‘Bar’. I was instantly drawn to the different shades and shadows of green used for the building, which really make the artwork stand out, especially as it is quite an unusual colour for a building. The artwork also includes undertones of yellow, blue and orange which are blended through the greens of the artwork. I also really like the quirkiness of the building, such as the slightly different shapes and sizes of the windows as well as the slight crookedness of the pipes running up the walls and what looks like a washing line going across the centre.

The artwork depicts a bar in Spain which is typical of Burchell’s interest in urban scenes where a human presence is hinted rather than made explicit. Burchell has mentioned that she was “immediately attracted by the quirkiness of this image; its lived in quality, and the irregular pattern of the windows. I would like the viewer to have some curiosity about what lies behind them. I enjoyed using mixed-media and heightened colour to describe the texture of the stonework.”

References –

https://axisweb.org/artist/carolynburchell

https://cm.artinhealthcare.org.uk/artshare.php?id=745d43b1ebd2

https://artinhealthcare-scotland.blogspot.com/2014/06/artist-uncovered-carolyn-burchell.html