I grew up in the Highlands of Scotland, in the county of Sutherland.  This northern land - the Southern Land of the Vikings - is very remote, sparsely populated and beautiful.

We lived on the north coast, in Tongue, when I was small and later moved to Helmsdale on the east coast.

I was still very young when I first visited the extremely rugged west coast and saw its array of inselbergs.  This sight took my breath away.  One of the peaks is Suilven, a long and very thin mountain which looks extraordinary when seen end on.  Sutherland has much dramatic and spectacular scenery and the ambience of remoteness was even greater in those days, when almost all the roads were single track, winding their way along the straths and amongst the rocky knolls.

In 1968 I went to art school, initially in Surrey and then in London, and I started to paint this pristine and largely unknown land because I wanted to tell everyone about it.  I soon  felt I would always paint Sutherland.

I have recently visited Iceland and Greenland.  I had wanted to visit lands that were beyond Sutherland - even more northerly, even close to the northern "edge" of the world - and wondered if I could see landscapes which were like what I think of as "Sutherland, exaggerated".  I did indeed find this, especially in the case of Greenland, which I feel has the appearance of a vast enlargement of the rocky land and coastal indentations of west Sutherland-with ice added.

Although these northern lands are not without trees, my abstracted landscapes are elemental.  I try to evoke the purity, the mystery, the drama and the voids.

Ann Davidson

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ann@anndavidson.co.uk
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