Art and Heritage Online Database

Collection: Grays School of Art Collection
Object Type: painting
Artist/Maker: MacDonald, Kirsty
Date: 2024
Media/Materials: natural pigment on paper with graphite
Awards: RGU Drawing and Painting Purchase Award
Classification: drawing and painting

Description:

Personal Statement

The natural world illuminates the work I create in my studio practice and research. I focus on how plants affect our culture, identity, and life. Over time, I have gained a wealth of knowledge about the world of plants, studying folklore, evolution, and sustainability.
I have tried to push the limits of sustainable practices within my work, highlighting climate change in the background whilst showcasing the usefulness, practicality, and importance of plants in terms of human culture in hopes of contributing a fresh perspective on climate action—one that recognises the pivotal role of flora.
Within my dissertation, I focused on the Rhins of Galloway, investigating how plants shaped the cultural fabric of this region. Previous research into this topic was under-recorded, so exploring and conducting research into this uncharted territory seemed important.
My work displays plants as the focus of the room, challenging the phenomenon of ‘plant blindness’ (as written by Wandersee and Schussler). I draw attention to the everyday plants that have profoundly impacted Scottish culture, often dismissed as mere weeds. Inspired by Michael Pollan and Richard Mabey, I view the world through a plant-centric lens, addressing societal biases associated with these humble botanical beings, and I am working towards a body of work that shows plants on an equal level with other subjects, such as the display of animals in museums and traditional portraiture.
The work is accompanied by supporting text about the natural pigment paint and an explanatory key to indicate the featured plants.

Nàdair: Oak
Nàdair is a series of three paintings featuring three Scottish-inspired ‘Trees of Life’. Each tree has a vital historical significance in Scottish culture and continues to affect it today.
The name of the series ‘Nàdair’ is based on the Scots-Gaelic word for nature, but its meaning is extended to both nature, meaning the natural world, and human nature, meaning it does not separate humans from plants/animals as is the usual case and instead encompasses all life.
This particular painting, ‘Oak’, contains many plants, each chosen based on their cultural significance in Scotland, and it comes with an accompanying key identifying each of these plants. The cultural significance of each plant was researched through a series of books, notably Tess Darwin’s ‘The Scots Herbal’, ‘The Mythic and Magickal Folklore of Plants’ by T. F. Thistleton-Dyer and Gregory Kenicer’s ‘Plant Lore’. I picked out the plants from these books and chose the ones I felt had the most significance, whether that be through folklore or use in medicine, food, textiles, etc.
The oak tree in the centre of the image, out of the three trees in the series, (which also included ‘Hazel’ and ‘Rowan’) the oak is perhaps one of the most worldwide symbols of shared cultural beliefs and reverence surrounding the plant. The oak was heavily worshipped during pagan times and was generally used as an altar of sorts. It was believed to protect towns and be a link to other worlds, as well as embody spirits, and was generally considered to be alive and powerful. People would have many traditions surrounding the oak tree, whether that be through the use of parts of the plant or through leaving offerings to the tree and so on. In fact, remnants of paganism are still felt today in relation to the oak tree through Christianity. Today worship is generally done within the setting of a church and originally churches were often referred to as kirks this word is actually derived from the word ‘Quercus’ which is the Latin word for an oak tree and so people could be seen to still go to the oak tree as part of their worship – this is one of my own personal favourite little facts that I learned throughout my research into each of the plants.
The three trees were shown as a triptych, which also harks back to the importance of plants by using the sort of associations that religion has for the prominence that it bestows upon the pieces as well.
Ultimately the ‘goal’ of my work was to shine a light on plants and the plant world. Avoiding the doom-and-gloom approach to climate change I instead tackle the issue by showing the impact plants have had on our way of life and show that our practices of today would not exist without plants helping us all the way. Farming, food, culture, folklore and more does not exist as it does today without the help of plants.
The pigments used in the plant are handmade – created from mud, grass, sand, leaves and rock gathered sustainably around Aberdeen.
Object Number: ABDRG2024.5