Eleanor Cunningham has been covering a lot of ground! Around East Lothian. And on canvas. With a successful café in Edinburgh and various arts qualifications in her back pocket, she’s accelerating towards a promising painting career.
After a hiatus in her arts practice, she is currently studying the Professional Development course at Paintbox Art School in Cockenzie. Living and working in Dunbar, her work is influenced by her surroundings and the changing seasonal colours and textures in the Scottish landscape. A 1999 graduate of the Scottish College of Textiles, her love of colour and texture are clearly visible. Working in acrylic and mixed media her work is created through many layers of paint and glazes, adding depth and interest to her paintings which she describes as abstract representations of scenes she has visited.
Eleanor often walks around the area with her dog Jess. (A whippet who I suspect also has pace!). Absorbing the landscape, it’s everchanging details, she fuses them into her artistic response. Tyninghame Fields 1 below, conveys the bare red earth in the fields over the Winter months and the green cabbage crops which so often grow around East Lothian. The hazy sky which appears regularly during the colder months is something which often features in Eleanor’s work. The textures in the fields have been built up using many layers of paint and glazes – applied with different thicknesses of brush strokes - using a variety of tools to manipulate and scrape back through the paint.
Describing her studio as ‘frenetic’, I’m in awe of her artistic output. The space is awash with work in various stages, sketches, experiments, and photographs serving as visual cues. There’s a sense she feels she’s making up for the fifteen years she wasn’t producing work.
“I keep thinking I'll slow down but it doesn't seem to happen!”.
I can understand. She’s deeply connected to her subject, energised by her process and her creativity clearly flowing.
Whilst engaged in producing work for the Borders Art Fair and a summer exhibition at Paintbox, she has just delivered new paintings for our Spring offering at Found.
The collection – a mix of landscapes and seascapes – have drawn inspiration from nearby Belhaven Bay and Whitesands. Her signature mark making and soothing palette, together with pops of pink, blue, yellow and green are a perfect nod to Spring. (All acrylic on wooden panel in various sizes, as detailed below.)
Whitesands in Spring 1
Acrylic on wooden panel
20 x 20cm (unframed size)
Finished with varnish & wax
Belhaven at Dusk 1
Acrylic on wooden panel
20x20cm (unframed size)
Finished with varnish and wax
Belhaven in Spring 1
Acrylic on wooden panel
20x20cm (unframed size)
Finished with varnish and wax
Despite such momentum, the paintings are calm, serene, and layered with a soft empathy for the landscape. As an artist wandering our shores and paths, her palette is poised and tranquil, mark making intuitive and her ‘way of seeing’ beautiful.
Whitesands in Spring 2
Acrylic on wooden panel
30 x 30cm (unframed size)
Finished with varnish & wax
Belhaven at Dusk 2
Acrylic on wooden panel
25x25cm (unframed size)
Finished with varnish & wax
Lost ground? Not a bit! Eleanor’s visual journey is fresh, evocative and I’m coming along!
Her latest collection can be seen at the gallery Monday – Saturday 10am -5pm. For more details, please contact amy@thefoundgallery.co.uk