The Machair Plain, Uist, a contemporary landscape of the flat lands before the sea in The Western Isles by Victoria Orr Ewing

I make paintings that evoke landscape, at times with an adherence to reality, at other times favouring reduction into abstracted colour fields. They consider how we experience landscape, from the vastness of cosmic space to intimate moments of particular light within our personal environments, and at times draw on imagined or remembered places.

I am especially drawn to wild, sparsely inhabited landscapes that fill one with awe and a profound sense of being small within the vastness of our planet. Empty moors, marshes, coastlines and remote places, often stark and sublime, carrying a hint of ominous beauty. More recently, a trip to Morocco and the Sahara Desert has informed my painting practice, captivated by its immense scale, silence and shifting light. These landscapes evoke both wonder and vulnerability, reminding us of nature’s scale and enduring power.

The common thread throughout my work is a specific kind of light, a radiance emerging between darker forms. I select times of day and weather conditions that evoke an atmosphere of melancholic grace. I give equal weight to every element in the painting, avoiding any hierarchy of meaning.

My paintings are often pared back, creating a visual threshold beyond which the viewer encounters an expansive sense of space. I work from sketches made from life, sometimes memory, and occasionally photographs, but I am primarily concerned with achieving an emotional response to being in a particular landscape rather than a literal description. Alongside this, I am equally inspired by intimate domestic spaces such as my garden and the immediate surroundings of home, holding in tension the vulnerability of vast landscapes with the protection of familiar, enclosed places.

I am interested in places between places, edges and borders. I perceive borders not simply as physical demarcations on a map, but as complex symbols that define, divide and connect us, representing safety and exclusion, identity and division, freedom and restriction.

My work reflects the contradictory nature of the spaces we inhabit.

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Solo Exhibitions

2026 Where Sky Meets Earth, Aleph Contemporary, Stroud.
2024 Intimate Immensity, 11 Avenue Studios Gallery, London
2020 The Light Between, The Fine Art Society, Edinburgh
2019 Ebb and Flood, The Fine Art Society, Edinburgh
2018 Of Land and Stone, 11 Avenue Studios Gallery, London
2014 Sombras Naturales. El Cuartito, Gaucin, Malaga
2012 Scottish Skies, Panter and Hall, London
2009 Light on Andalucia, Panter and Hall, London
2002-16  Art Gaucin Open Studios, Gaucin, Malaga
2001 Moroccan Paintings. La Fructuosa, Gaucin. Malaga
1988 Organic 2. Wilkinthrope farm Studio. Somerset
1996 Opening exhibition, Glassworks Production Studio, Soho, London
1995 Organic Work, Creelers, Edinburgh
1991 Asian Sketches. Black Bull Gallery, London

Group Exhibitions

2025 Gallery At Home Open Call Summer Exhibition, Gallery At Home,Abergavenny, Wales.
2025 Irving Gallery Open Call Exhibition, Irving Gallery, Oxford.
2024 Short Listed, Beep Painting Biennial, Elysium Gallery, Swansea, Wales
2024 Rhythm & Blue, Kevis House Gallery, Petworth, West Sussex.
2023 Royal Institute Of Painters In Watercolour, Mall galleries, London
2023 ING Discerning Eye, Mall galleries, London
2023 Kevis House Group Exhibition, Petworth.
2023 Wells Art Contemorary, Wells Cathedral, Somerset.
2022 Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness. Kevis House Gallery, Petworth, West Sussex
2021 Liberating Landscapes. Kevis House Gallery, Petworth, West Sussex
2021 Fourteen. McAllister Thomas, Godalming, Surrey
2019 Winter Exhibition, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro
2019 Galloway Artists. Fine Art Society, Harbour Cottage Gallery, Kirkcudbright
2017 Selected for Bath Society of Artists open. Victoria Gallery, Bath
2016 Selected for RA summer exhibition. RA London
2014 Group exhibition, Nando Arguelles Gallery, Sotogrande, Cadiz
2013 The Scottish Show, Panter and Hall, London
2009 The Scottish Show, Panter and Hall, London
2006 Gibraltar International Art Competition. 1st prize
2005 3 woman, Atelier Gallery, Gaucin, Malaga
2002 Summer exhibition. New Grafton Gallery, London
2002 Los Canos Gallery, Guadiaro, Cadiz
1996 Kitchen art. Christopher Hull Gallery, London.
Art in Nature, Wallsworth Hall, Gloucester.
Jaisalmer in Jeopardy, Groucho club, London
1995 Banking on Art. Clachen Moor Gallery, Galloway. 1st prize
1991 The Discerning Eye. Mall Galleries, London.
Save the Rhino, Bonhams, London
1988 The Sunday Times Watercolour exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
Art for Youth, Mall Galleries, London.
Art for Earth Action, Rawlings street, London
1987 Byzantium Gallery, Edinburgh.
Art for Youth, Mall Galleries, London.

Awards

2006 33rd Gibraltar International Art Competition, 1st prize
1995 Bank of Scotland Art prize
1986 Thomas Girtin watercolour prize

Collections

Turcan Connell, Glasgow.

Cawdor Castle, Scotland.

The City & Guilds Institute, London.

Ministry of Culture, Gibraltar.

Glassworks Post Production Studio