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To open our Summer Art Series 2016 we featured three artists whose work, in different  ways, has a strong sculptural quality.  Angus  Ross   is   one   of Scotland’s most acclaimed designers and makers of furniture. His work combines beauty, craftsmanship and functionality. Caroline Pearce’s collection of abstract ceramic sculptures are inspired by the extraordinary patterns of the tree bark in our woodlands.  The huge skies at Kinmonth were the creative stimulus for Caroline Boyle’s ceramics, whose free form follows a planetary theme.  Our ceramic artists were in residence during the exhibition.
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Sunday 29th May - Sunday 5th June 2016
Open 11am-8pm​

Angus Ross   Acorns to Art

​At his studio-workshop in Aberfeldy, Perthshire,  Angus Ross bends, moulds, sculpts and folds wood to create site specific commissions for private clients, interior designers and public spaces. The scale varies from intricate jewellery boxes to groups of large exterior functional art works. He also has a range of limited edition and micro-batch production furniture.
 
As a maker Angus is inspired by his material: wood and the processes involved working with it. He co-owns a local mixed woodland, a few miles downstream from his workshop, and he is involved with growing, felling, milling and preparing timber for furniture making. The small sections of green oak produced led to a deep exploration of the the ancient art of steam-bending. This method was used for centuries in Scotland to make barrels and fishing boats and he is now an acknowledged master of the technique achieving new precision, complexity and scale.
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As a designer Angus is principally concerned with function and the whole experience of interacting with each piece of furniture. When appropriate he likes to introduce an element of surprise and fun.  Aesthetically Angus is inspired by structure and the balance of line and space and his work is characterised by pure flowing lines.
 
Angus has a background in commercial product design. He graduated with BSc Industrial Design from Napier University in 1985 and he retrained in furniture making at the renowned Rycotewood College, Oxfordshire. After over two decades of furniture making (nominated for numerous awards and exhibiting at prestigious international exhibitions) Angus Ross has built a loyal client base across the globe.

www.angusross.co.uk

Caroline Pearce   Bark

​Caroline was born in the Netherlands, but has been living in Scotland’s Perthshire Highlands for the last eight years. 
 
After qualifying as an architect, Caroline worked freelance for several years, interspersed with periods of travel in Africa, Asia and South America.  More recently she spent 3 years in the Falkland Islands, until moving to Scotland in 2007.
 
Caroline’s passion is the process of creating beautiful things.  She has worked in most media, but in recent years she has returned to ceramics.  She loves the tactile aspects of moulding clay, and the excitement and uncertainty of firing and glazing. 

While her work is essentially abstract, Caroline is inspired by natural things and the landscape in which she lives, particularly plants and trees.  Although she starts with a rough idea of what she wants to create, she goes where the clay takes her, rather than planning her pieces in detail before sitting down to her workbench.  She seeks to capture movement and to give her work an organic feel.
 
Caroline’s studio sits amidst the Perthshire hills, with wonderful views towards Schiehallion (the “fairy mountain”) and over the valleys of the Tay and the Lyon.

www.caroline-pearce.co.uk

Caroline Boyle    In the Night Sky

Caroline Boyle is a modern languages graduate.  After a varied career working in international shipping, finance and political campaigning, a glorious sabbatical spent in Rome in 2009 was the inspiration for leaving the desk job behind and moving to a house in Abernethy built on the site of an old Roman camp. Surely meant to be! Whilst renovating the house and attempting to wrestle a garden out of thistles she has finally been able to pursue her lifelong love of ceramics.  She found wonderful teachers to develop her skills and give her the confidence to start experimenting with clay and glaze.
 
Caroline increasingly focuses on larger pots for outdoors.  Using traditional coiling techniques to handbuild different shapes - though variations on the Roman urn is a favourite - she has a particular interest in lavish texture and glazes which try to capture the changing nature of the sky from dawn to sunset and inky dusk.
 
Caroline usually works to commission.  Her collection “In the Night sky” for the Kinmonth View is her first public exhibition.