Borders-based artist Neil Stewart is delighted that he will be able to see his latest body of work displayed in Perth’s Frames Gallery. The exhibition Narrative Arks: Into the Wildwood documents his bicycle journey along the National Cycle Route 1, an adventure which he undertook in the summer of 2022.
Neil’s background involves sculpture at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, an MSc in Art and the Community from Edinburgh University and working with adults with learning disabilities. Alongside visual arts, Neil has a love for music; “I have nurtured my love for classical guitar (starting as an 8 year old),” he explains.
“I think the pinnacle of that must have been a three week daily performance with another guitarist at the Edinburgh Fringe: World Music on Two Guitars. And then fatherhood and three beautiful kids largely put paid to a sustained creative life, until I took up printing again, as well as sculpture.”
Neil says that he hasn’t looked back since then and he certainly threw himself wholeheartedly into preparations for Narrative Arks. “I’ve always loved the Caledonian Forest and wanted to travel to the Cairngorms to visit Glen Feshie Estate.” He was aware that the National Cycle Route 1 passes his home in the Borders and decided to incorporate cycling into his plans. “I thought I’d travel up on Sustrans routes,” he explains, “and sleep wild on the way. Because I was cycling I could take my time, gathering ideas, photographs, sound recordings and impressions along the way.
“I knew I wanted to make a kind of pictorial route map. Maybe others might like to follow! Then I could at leisure, through the winter months, sift through all my material to produce a body of work.”
The sixteen lino prints in the exhibition reveal the artist’s love for the medium. “I love the precision as well as the physicality of lino printing. Each mark, cut and pattern distinct from its neighbour and needing to be as concise as readable handwriting.
“The biggest print is a route map – from Glenbenna in the Borders, up to Edinburgh, over to Stirling, the Trossachs, Perthshire (my great grandfather David Stewart was originally from Braco) up over the Drumochter Pass and into the Cairngorms. Finally reaching Inverness, and the train home. The other 15 are all 30 x 30 cm and illustrate my experiences en route.
“Additionally there are 23 storyboards recounting my journey, along with photos I took. On a number of those boards are QR codes. Scan these with your smart phone and you are taken to my Sound Diaries,” explains Neil.
Another source of inspiration for the trip and resulting artwork was a popular radio programme. “I have for years been an avid listener to BBC Radio Scotland`s Out of Doors and aspired to emulate their approach of recording soundscapes, interviews, ruminations and description for their packages. But I wanted to add music too.”
Neil successfully applied for a Visual Artist and Craftmaker Award and was able to use this funding to buy a good quality microphone to help make the recordings. He brought a small guitar on his travels, as he was: “keen to develop music as I pedalled along the way. Music which drew from my experiences as I travelled, or sat by the tent in the evenings.
“One guitar piece featured in my Sound Diaries is a folk tune Le Loup de Carpathes. I remember playing it one evening, on a grassy plain overlooking the Spey river after having just seen the wolves at the Highland Wildlife Park near Newtonmore. In my head I was planning the linocut I`d make back home. Music, vivid and visceral memory, printing, and the winding Spey below me in the twilight glow – everything felt very connected. In the finished music there is a kind of panting bass line which was created by playing the bottom string of an acoustic guitar with a cello bow.”
Neil is delighted to have the opportunity to display Narrative Arks at Frames Gallery. “It is a beautiful gallery,” he enthuses. “Nurtured and developed over 44 years or so by Hugh and Julie. I count myself very fortunate that they agreed to hang my prints, storyboards as well as a large figurative sculpture in elm wood. All of it fits perfectly in their gallery space.
“The music, sounds, conversations, prints and narrative are all telling the same story. All of them saying: what a beautiful country we live in. How lucky we are to have the Right of Responsible Access in Scotland, national parks, rewilding, reforesting, reimagining projects led by hard working folk full of hope that what they do can make a real difference.
“Oh and there is a wee book for sale as well,” he says. It contains everything you can see and hear in the exhibition. Apart from the sculpture!”
Narrative Arks: Into the Wildwood is at Frames Gallery, Perth until February 25.
Conversation