Dreamwalker

Written by Richard Hamerton-Stove

The whole skin has this delightful sensitivity; it feels the sun, it feels the wind running inside one's garment, it feels water closing on it as one slips under - the catch in the breath, like a wave held back, the glow that releases one's entire cosmos, running to the ends of the body as the spent wave runs out upon the sand. This plunge into the cold water of a mountain pool seems for a brief moment to disintegrate the very self; it is not to be borne: one is lost: stricken: annihilated. Then life pours back. Nan Shepherd’s violent beauty was inspired by the Scottish highlands. It’s a landscape that has a history of evoking strong emotional responses. The mists, hills, clouds and watery sunlight offer up an ever shifting landscape that seems never twice to be the same. Dreamwalker invites the viewer to merge with the ancient and evocative landscape of the highlands. To take the plunge and not just to lose oneself but to leave other things behind. The settings are ethereal, other worldly. The figures wisp, at one with the water, light and land. The scenes are vibrant yet at ease. Living figures in a living landscape, living together. 

There is water which, in the highlands, is never far from the sky. Yet we are not in dreich times. Rather we have sparkling water. The rarity of sunlit water in the highlands imbues a preciousness that a mediterranean glut cannot match. And here there are so many ways for water to be. Young rivers surging through gullies. Ancient, moody lochs lying in between high grounds. Salty havens for seaweed and birds. Dappled water in the moonlight, playing with the beams. Slanting water within a storm sky picked out by beams reaching through clouds.

The light pours from the sky and settles on water and the land. Illuminating with sunlight, moonlight, windlight, cloudlight. Sun and Moon. Shadow and glint. Delicately choosing its colours. Shifting every changing sky moment.

The wind shapes the clouds and sweeps across the landscape. Causing land colours to move with it, along hills, gulches and skies. A dynamic partner revealing itself through others. “The air is part of the mountain, which does not come to an end with its rock and soil.” - Nan Shepherd again.

The land is settled and soft. Not domineering or threatful. A background dweller. Responding in colour. Often blue, providing a sharp aerial perspective. Iconic lapis lazuli to watery white blue sunlight. Land takes its time. There is a lot of it. Land has seen it all and is not rushed. 

Figures feel the life ‘pouring back’. Vulnerable to the elements. A series of fleeting moments each holding their own perspective. We see and feel the harmonious coming together of elemental forces and their power stimulates a connected calm.

The water, wind and light prick our senses. Connect with our emotive selves. The land joins more deeply. Lower. A grounding element. Tap rooting in to our landly emotions as it has done to all those whose footsteps and feelings went before us. All those who felt the way we feel. A temporal kinship. 

The paint and colour release the urgencies of our lives. Leaving space to be filled as it was for our forebears. Cleaner space. “Matter impregnated with mind” as Nan Shepherd teaches it. Fast moving, dynamic landscapes nurture an inner stillness. The same place and same time seed new experience. Layer on emotive layer. Time over time. So many strands. Follow your own path knowing others felt the same. The elemental harmonies of wind, water, land and light are a welcoming crowd.

So don’t think, dream, and do walk in.