The Stables, Cromarty, 1-3 December 2006

The Highlander's Revenge- Jon MacLeod Residency In Macedonia

HAVING RETURNED recently from a three week residency in Macedonia, artist Jon Macleod shared his experiences of another unique Highland environment at the Stables Gallery.

The need for opportunities for Highlands and Islands artists of all disciplines to be part of international exchange is being actively addressed by this annual initiative between the Cromarty Arts Trust and Art Point Gummo in Macedonia.

As part of a five year programme, the exchange will facilitate work in different disciplines from this initial visual arts residency to work in music, sculpture, photography and writing. It is refreshing that in addition to artists visiting the Highlands and Islands, the export of local talent is also being facilitated with support from HIE and HI~Arts.

For cultures on the edge, under threat from migration to urban areas and aging population decline, the need for conservation and reinterpretation becomes even more urgent. Parallels between Highland regions in Scotland and Macedonia are revealed through visual explorations of the rich natural environment, folklore, history and culture that define our communities.

The need for closer human interaction, interpretation and documentation through artist’s residencies has never been more relevant.

There is great value in terms of professional development for an artist embedded in unfamiliar surroundings in terms of their own evolutionary practice, and to countries on both sides of the exchange as part of a wider context.

The active engagement of Highland artists with other communities raises many important questions about our own identity, culture, future development and everyday lives.

What became clear during Jon’s discussion, slide show, and through other works on display was the exploration of familiarity between the cultures of the artist’s native Isle of Lewis and rural Macedonia.

The timelessness and distinct identity of culture that still merges experience of the natural and supernatural worlds with everyday life is very much in evidence through the artist’s residency.

Jon’s description of the extreme rural setting in Macedonia heightens a sense of potential conflict between negative aspects of nationalism and the pressures imposed by modern urban life. The affect and values of western consumerism are brought into focus by the continued existence of a different world.

Documented through the artist’s online blog, daily sketches, visual diary pages, paintings, projection work and photography, the richness of flora and fauna, the character, warmth, hospitality and beliefs of local people have a personal and universal meaning.

Having such an event to share the artist’s experience as an extension of the residency is extremely important and worthwhile. The communication of individual experience naturally explores cultural issues and questions of national importance through art.

What I found particularly fascinating was the merging of Eastern Orthodoxy with earlier pagan beliefs in Macedonia based on a deep understanding of the landscape and nature.

The early Celtic church also reflected the spirituality of what Jon Macleod described as “religion based on nature rather than conversion based on fear”. Documents such as ‘Carmina Gadelica – Ortha nan Gaidheal’, a collection of invocations, prayers and blessings collected by 19th century Scottish folklorist Alexander Carmichael in the Western Isles contain the same resonance.

Knowledge of the natural environment through plant lore and the dictates of the seasons in relation to human activity integral to earlier societies have become increasingly marginalised by our own.

Jon Macleod’s layering of imagery from the natural world and his investigation of icon painting in Macedonia has produced a series of images that contain the same phosphorescence as the world of “wolves, fairies and vampires”.

There is a combination of the worldliness of a travelogue, scientific investigation and museum display combined with an otherworldliness of spiritual thought and imagery.

Traditionally our stories, folklore and religious belief used to make sense of the immediate world around us. There is a simplicity and reverence contained in the close observation of plants, flowers and other natural elements that permeate the artist’s work.

Superimposed images of insects, butterflies and plants over stone and iconic imagery in black and white are particularly effective. Dual projection of natural images attracted a local Cromarty butterfly to the light, completing the moving image perfectly as part of the exhibition!

Having such an experience will no doubt lead to further explorations by the artist of his home environment on the Isle of Lewis and I hope it may be possible to view this ongoing development in subsequent exhibitions.

© Georgina Coburn, 2006

Associated Pages

• Jon Macleod Weblog

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