Helen Glassford: ‘My paintings draw on memories of the remote areas of Northern Scotland’

An exhibition featuring 40 new paintings by Scottish landscape artist Helen Glassford is opening at The Strathearn Gallery. 

Renowned for her emotionally resonant, immersive works, Helen captures the raw beauty and atmosphere of Scotland’s wild, untamed landscapes.  

Her richly layered paintings explore the fleeting interplay of memory, atmosphere and light, inviting viewers into a deeply felt experience of place.

Based in Newport-on-Tay, Helen has developed a distinctive style that reaches beyond traditional representation of what the eye sees.  

Her work evokes the senses; through subtle shifts in tone, texture and form, conjuring the elemental energy of land, sea, and sky.

‘My paintings draw on memory, experience and observations of the remote areas of Northern Scotland. Embedded both in place and the imagination yet reliant on the mutable and the intangible personalities of the landscape,’ Helen said. 

‘From the intimate to the vast they are a reflection upon the raw human experience of nature.’

The exhibition, Following a Changing Light, reflects Helen’s enduring fascination with the fleeting, transformative nature of light – particularly in the months when days shorten and every glimmer becomes more poignant.

‘I follow the changing light, not wanting to lose it.  I try to hold onto it, perhaps to touch it or simply to cement it in the mind.  

‘It reminds me of words from a poem “Words after speech, reach into the silence.” The memory stays.’

Helen’s creative process is one of discovery and intuition.  Working in oil, she builds her paintings through dynamic layers – pouring, dripping, blending, glazing, scraping away and rebuilding.  

In doing so, she seeks what she calls ‘the atmosphere of both the seen and the unseen’. Shapes, tones, and colours slowly emerge, revealing traces of memory, shifting light, and the emotional resonance of the landscape. 

Each painting in this exhibition evokes a strong sense of place that feels both familiar and elusive.  Mist drifts, rain whispers and distant landforms flicker between presence and memory.  These are not fixed locations, but vivid impressions – glimpses of landscapes felt as much as seen.

‘I paint the essence of each landscape sensed, absorbing the spirit and if I imagine its past and future I see the beauty that lies beneath, the beauty that can be felt,’ she said.

‘In northern landscapes I become acutely aware of the passing of time – a place where light becomes sacred and where distances grow deeper after the equinox.’

‘Following a Changing Light runs from 6 September – 5 October at Strathearn Gallery. www.strathearn-gallery.com

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