My work explores how landscape shapes bodies, thoughts, language and feelings. I’m interested in the reciprocal relationship between people and place - How we carry landscapes within us, and how we are marked by these worlds in return.
I live in the island village of Marvig, South Lochs where parts of my family have lived for generations. It’s a place of rocks, scree slopes, peat bogs and sea cliffs; these features form the backdrop of my imagination.
The landscapes here are ancient but they aren’t static, they’re living, storied, wind-worn. There are many abandoned ruins of homes, traces of life when the population was much bigger. The geography displays the movements of glaciers during the ice age. The rock is Lewisian gneiss one of the oldest in the world made through metamorphism, born from heat and pressure formed deeply in the earths crust.
Features such as ridges, massive boulders, hilltops and inlets have names passed down through generations, many place names are linked to people, animals or the useful properties of a place.
I along with all islanders have a strong attachment to our home landscapes, a bond made keener with time away travelling, working or studying.
I repeatedly return to familiar spots, I walk the same routes. I notice how wind directions and patterns alter the space, tidal shifts create temporary territories. The familiar routes become unfamiliar with light, time or memory.
The physical elements of the landscape intrigue and these elements are woven through with stories. Some of these are folklore but I am particularly drawn to recent history and the recollections from elderly neighbours. They hold the remaining knowledge of a people who lived immersed in Gaelic culture. They had very real struggles with poverty, injustice and carried responsibilities from a young age; but yet we can find a lightness of spirit, a unique sense of humour and a compassion born from lived experience and faith.
I make observational drawings outdoors with charcoal or watercolour, I take photos, make sound recordings, and also recordings of anecdotes and stories. These are tools that help me intentionally look and pay careful attention to the details. I will go through these collections when I need reminders, and often I use these drawings and notes directly for printmaking.
I also draw in my studio, working from memory, or life drawing. I make colour and compositional studies to explore how relationships between colours, shape, surface and space evoke a mood.
Colour plays a central role in my work, reflecting the colours I find in the landscape in different seasons. The ochres, greys, greens, pinks found in the local plant life, mosses and lichens have provided a tapestry of colours. The seaweeds, and the range of colours found in streams, ponds and the sea shore all find a way into the work. I use colour to evoke a place, a temperature, time of day and mood. Some of the colour is soft, barely there and some other are saturated, energetic and restless, insistent; they echo the emotional weight of memory or encounters.
When I paint I work on several pieces at the same time, a painting emerges slowly over months as I will put it aside to rest while I work on something else. In this way the paintings are in conversation with each other. When painting I work from memory, rather than pre-conceived studies, responding to the materials as I go. The painting is the end product of my drawing practice, as well as what I have been focusing on, including what I’ve been reading writing or the fragments of conversations that have stayed with me. The results are like filtered reflections, the cumulation of years of noticing.
My work invites the viewer to slow down, to attune to detail, to notice what’s shifting on the edges. It’s a quiet form of witness; an attempt to map feeling onto land and honour the entangled lives that move through it.
If you would like more information; a virtual studio visit; or to reach out about a collaborative project you may be working on, you are welcome to email at sandrakennedy@mac.com.
Sandra Kennedy C.V
Selected Exhibitions
2025 Group Show 40-40 An Lanntair, 40th Year celebratory exhibition.
2024 Group show Ulaidgean/ Treasures Group show Scottish Society of Artists.
2022 Solo Show -Casruisg/ Barefooted An Lanntair.
2021 Two person show - Eadar Muir is Tìr CNS Ness Isle of Lewis.
2020 Online exhibition- Pause Scottish Society of Artists.
2016 Le Mùirn group exhibition The Briggait Glasgow.
2013 Solo show, Museum of Modern Art, Tabernacle Machynlleth, Wales.
2012 Corridor show, AGA Amsterdam.
2010 Group Show Ars Navigare, Forum Marinum, Turku, Finland
2010 Group show TIR, Oriel Plan Glyn y Weddw Wales.
2008/2009, 2012 Group Show Rendezvous Gallery, Aberdeen.
2007 Two Person show with Calum Angus Mackay Suathadh Dileab/ Touching Heritage An Lanntair.
1992 Two person show with Mary Morrison New work An Lanntair.
1992 Solo Show of works on paper, Ifusagi Haz, Pecs, Hungary.
1996 Solo show Dunedin Gallery, Edinburgh.
Commissions, Projects
2023-2024 Pairc Landscape Project Relationships with landscape research project through workshops UHI, Pairc Trust and Nature Scotland.
2022-2023 Culture Collective- Shetland Arts. Gaelic story telling collections.
2021-2022 Làn Thìde, Climate Beacon- audio works based on collaboration with climate scientist Dr James Pope Met office.
2022 Cosàn Gabhla Outdoor event with poets and visual artists- Installation piece.
2019-2022 Artists Support, for An Lanntair Arts Centre, Isle of Lewis.
2020 Mapping Project - Recovering lost place names, An Lanntair.
2016 Le Mùirn- Paintings about the songs of Murdo MacFarlane - Glasgow life.
2014 Collaborative project with elderly community Memory Books An Lanntair.
2006 Sculpture on the theme of home, Mac TV arts documentary.
2000-2003 An Turas artist/ architect commission, for Tiree Art Enterprises.
1998 Site specific installation, commission Eolas TV arts documentary.
Artists Residencies
2011 AGA Amsterdam, printmaking workshop.
2010 Arts Navigare, group sailing residency aboard SV Helena, Cherbourg to Kiel.
2009 TIR residency at Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw, Wales
2009 Dwelling Places, Art workshops with community groups, Kampala Uganda
2005/2006 GASD National Gaelic Arts Project, Isle of Lewis
1996 Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Aberdeen International Young Artists Festival
Production Design/ film making
2021 Production designer short film Cum Sul Orm, for Corran Media.
2021 Production Designer short film Piano, for Mac TV.
2013/14 Workshops making 4 short films with young people Cinèma Cent Ans de Jeunesse Filmhouse Edinburgh.
Further Education
1990 Grays School of Art, Aberdeen BA(hons) Sculpture
2000 Central St Martins School of Art and Design MA Scenography/ Performance
