dominique cameron

The bog cotton is out, congregational, constellational, twinkling in a wind that sings the greenest green to the lone rowan tree, breathing May into the dun coloured moor.

Oil, ink and collage on wood – 20 x 15 cm.

Mixed media on board – 76 x 51 cm.

Mist rolls in from the river, shrouding the giant pylon, it’s concrete piling mangrove roots sink down deep in the mud. I meet pensioner Tom, sitting, smoking a large cigar. Says he feels less guilty watching the racing and footie if he’s been for a walk. He takes in the view up river, cigar to his lips, smiles and shakes my hand. Says he won’t forget my name. Down river the brutalist Kincardine Bridge looking for all its worth like it could be striding across the Volga in the Soviet Union of the 1930’s. Rotting, sinking ghost boats bear their worn ribs, picked clean by a thousand tides. Butterflies and a whispering wind through the splintering, animating, flick book danger to life 275,000 volt railings. The graceful repetition of the bridge’s pillars swing out over the water in the pale silver light.

Hello, my solo show ‘Up With The Larks’ with Fidra Fine Art in Gullane, East Lothian opens on Saturday 6th May and runs through to the 18th June.

The preview is on Saturday 2-5 pm. Please do come along, it would be lovely to see you !

Dominique x

Silver ghost clouds floating on still water, slipping between worlds, unnoticed. Giant pylons march this landscape, two abreast in their greatcoats, humming to keep their spirits up. Walking on duck boards through dark pools of rush and root. Off the path, following the Black Devon river to its mouth where it empties into the Forth, through thickets of snag happy hawthorn, wool pulled, skin pricked, hair caught. Arriving at an eight feet high fence with barbed wire. I joke that we could do with a spot of vandalism about now and a moment later a hole large enough to crawl through is spotted. Sitting on a dead tree limb beside a yellow flip flop and old car seat I take in the view. The banks of the river slip into a silken scene from a seventeenth century Dutch landscape painting, if you ignore the pylons. The grey mud pops like raindrops, belches when I throw a stone into its swollen belly. There is a softness and an edge to this place depending on your point of view, both conditions will be washed up or taken away, as memories are wont to do. A slow day of walking .

Oil on wood – 50 x 40 cm.

Oil on wood – 40 x 50 cm.

This work is part of a solo show with Fidra Fine Art which runs from May 6th – June 18th. I do hope you might be able to make it along. There is a publication to coincide with the exhibition – ‘Up With The Larks’ which is currently at the printers and will be ready shortly. I’ll keep you posted ! Dominique x

Oil on wood – 25 x 20 cm.

An ebb tide channels the water, pulling itself to a sea it knows only in its deepest briny dreams. Small burns trickle from the fields, draining hither and thither, eel curved gullies through the slick, shiny banks of mud. Reed beds like whale baleen sift the flotsam, railway sleepers and trees remain trapped in their bone yards from a hundred years of winters. We meet Daniel on the hunt for rare bricks. He tells us about the old swing bridge, munition stores from two world wars and the old blue crane on the jetty, long ago abandoned on the far side of the river. His enthusiasm for this landscape is vital and engaging. A hare sprints across an open field. Stirling rises in the distance, guarding the entrance to the mountains of the west. At the river’s edge reeds crackle in the brittle winter sun, a shiver of a rising tide returns.