CIANALAS: Julie Forrester Clark

CIANALAS (ki-an-a-las)

A Scottish-Gaelic word meaning, "a deep longing for a place" or "a strong feeling of belonging to a place".

Overview

The public is invited to the opening reception on Sunday, March 29 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM to meet the artist and experience her work firsthand. Remarks will be delivered at 2:30 pm.

Artist Statement
CIANALAS (ki-an-a-las)

A Scottish-Gaelic word meaning, "a deep longing for a place" or "a strong feeling of belonging to a place".

Julie Forrester Clark has "suffered" from Cianalas her whole life, completely unaware that this was a recognized condition rather than a mildly obsessive attachment to Scotland. Discovering in 2022 that it had a name — and other sufferers — explained a great deal!
Julie has always been obsessed with the beauty of Scotland's landscapes, especially on the west coast, highlands and islands. The artwork in this show goes beyond geography — they are emotional landscapes, portraying the feelings Julie gets when she visits these
places; a feeling of awe at the wildness of the place, the wind, the craggy coastlines, the shapes and scale of the mountains and the beauty of the deserted, Caribbean-like beaches. The quiet solitude she experiences there connects her to the universe as no other place does. Julie's paintings do not depict specific places, rather the feelings and memory of experience. The landscapes are abstracted and painted as bright, colourful scenes that endeavour to remind her that, although she cannot live permanently on a glorious windswept Hebridean beach, a small piece of it can at least live on her studio walls.