Dame Barbara Rae, CBE RA RSA: TIME LINES

Barbara Rae’s work is rooted in place. Although she has travelled extensively throughout her career, the landscapes she returns to are never chosen at random. They are places shaped by history and human presence, where memory, geography and time remain visible within the land itself; landscapes that bear witness to human presence measured against the geology that has shaped the land.

 

Time Lines brings together works from locations Rae has revisited throughout her career, among them the west coast of Scotland, where she has painted since the mid 1970s, returning repeatedly to Glenuig and Achiltibuie; the Lammermuirs, that formidable natural barrier between the Lothians and the Borders, marked by millennia of prehistoric earthworks, shelter belts and field dykes; County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland. A place she has returned to almost annually for more than two decades, working during the winter months, when low sunlight reveals hidden contours and ancient field patterns, Rae captures the land as both physical terrain and historical record.

 

Throughout her career, Rae has been drawn to the traces left within a landscape. Debris strewn beaches, harbours, field systems, fences and pathways recur across her work, reflecting a sustained fascination with the relationship between people and place over time, where human presence has left its mark.

 

Spending long periods immersed in a location and filling sketchbooks with observations, Rae later develops these into paintings and prints in the studio. Time Lines brings together immense canvases alongside early drawings, mixed media works and prints, revealing both the breadth of her practice and the evolution of her visual language.