These charcoal drawings and the subsequent etching were created in the manner of a walking/drawing conversation with the High Street of Edinburgh in 2004. This series of street drawings were copied onto transparent acrylic then overlaid and pasted together to form multiple vanishing points and rolling perspectives. I often use direct drawing to explore geographical crossroads and borders in my work, intuiting the nature of passage and migration. Therefore the intricate nature and histories of the Old Town were perfect for this project. I am fascinated by the accumulated mark, representing countless variations of a certain archetype, including human activity in this city, its spaces traversed by locals and visitor alike. My work attempts to transform ordinary places into poetic acts of memory and in the final etching I overlaid a textured green surface, perhaps an imaginary lawn (?) appearing, like magic, over this city of stone.
Kate Downie is a Scottish landscape artist whose career over the past 30 years has spanned the media of painting, drawing, printmaking, performance and film. Her work appears in public & private collections worldwide.
[Published in The Evergreen Vol. I]
