The markers that people leave within the landscape, and the markers or memories that landscape leaves in people is at the core of Jo Dalgety’s paintings.
Be enchanted as you meander To the Hedgerow and Up to the Herepath. Shulve From the Corner, Along the Watercourse. Yomp To the Wheel Ford and so it goes.
The titles of Dalgety’s work take you on a journey inspired by 16th century way markers. These directional aids assisted travellers through landscapes where no street signs or google maps existed. South to the Holloway refers to ‘a path that has been grooved down into the surrounding landscape due to the erosive power of feet, wheels and rainwater’. 1 Such relevant detail revealed from a single word as one scrambles through the countryside.
Jo Dalgety paints with layers of paper, literally and metaphorically, referencing the evolution of life as layers build upon layers in the landscape. As people and generations, we have those layers built within us as well.
These layers represent our things, our memories, our history, all melting into the land and leaving marks. Underpinning her work is the hope or belief in nature, that the cycle of life will continue, and heal. That spring comes after winter.
Come prole through the gallery, linger a while. Jo will be in the gallery Saturday 12th Feb, 10 – 3pm. An artist Q&A session will take place at 12.30pm. All welcome!
“Lost memories lie in the unconscious strata of mind itself, these dark, rarely disturbed layers that have accumulated, as mould accumulates in a forest, through the shedding of innumerable lives since the beginning of life.’ – Jacquetta Hawkes, ‘A Land’.
- Landmarks, Robert Macfarlane, Penguin Books, UK, 2015, p. 203