Elidh Gardiner, Artist, Teacher, and musician.

I first came across Elidh after noticing a rather beautiful painting on the the cover of Over the Bridges. It was a view of Simonside. I loved it.
Elidh kindly invited me to her home, and I spent quite a long time talking with her. She was generous with her time, and her answers to my questions. I wrote the following article about her for the Northumberland Gazette in February 2019.

Elidh's website.

Elidh, painting.

In Elidh's house.

Symbols, secrets, and patterns, are what, to me, link this image with Elidh's prolific Coquetdale works.

Sharp's Folly

I am drawn to her many images of the Simonside hills, painted from different angles. Elidh tells me about her fascination with the work of the Japanese artist, Hokusai. She says “When I found out that he had produced dozens of versions of Mount Fiji, it seemed to validate my own desire, or should I say 'obsession', to paint Simonside so often. Derek would say, 'not yet another picture of Simonside!'. I can now reply, well, it worked well for Hokusai!”.

At first glance these images of Simonside appear to be straightforward landscapes. However, a deeper look reveals a great deal more. Unusually, the frames for almost all of them are in portrait format. This device cleverly creates a different kind of depth. The symbolism is far from literal, but you can feel the sense of there being more there than what you can see at a glance. Her work contains allusions to Celtic history, of journeys and myths. A motif in many of the Simonside images is the hawthorn tree. Many images portray trees in sets of three.

Hawthorn Tree.

Lorbottle

I asked Elidh about the artists who had influenced her the most; “I studied graphic art and love 'graphic' artists, such as the English painter Eric Ravilious. Another favourite is the contemporary printmaker, Rebecca Vincent.” Elidh tells me that she has always also loved the Pre-Raphaelite painters, for the story telling qualities of their work.

Field Stone and Beggars Rigg

After completing her studies at Newcastle Polytechnic, Elidh had a variety of jobs, including being a life model, and working at the Bowes Railway, before eventually training to be a teacher of Art and Design. It is clear that she gained a great deal of satisfaction from helping disadvantaged pupils to gain really good grades. She enjoyed introducing pupils to works by great artists. She recalls: “Van Gogh's 'sun flowers' is a wonderful painting studied by many generations of school children and me over my teaching years, all versions we could find of them. The story behind it is dramatic and enthralling and the style accessible. Students noticing things like his coloured lines, not just his brush strokes, always seemed like a breakthrough”. Pressing her further on this, she explains: “I might have overdone it” “Go on”, I encourage her: “Well”, she laughs, “I accompanied a party of sixth formers to the National Gallery to see a real Van Gogh Sunflower painting - and some of the students burst into tears - as if it was The Beatles or Take That!”

Lorbottle Square with Poppies

A practical person, Elidh makes her own mounts and frames. Besides being a full-time artist, she also plays the flute and performs with Alnwick Symphonic Wind Ensemble and the Alnwick Playhouse Concert Band.

Elidh manages the website for the Coquetdale Art Gallery which is a charity based in Rothbury. If you would like to develop your own artistic skills, the gallery has Saturday classes, beginning in March. See the website for details. www.coquetdalearts.co.uk

I exhibit my work with the Coquetdale Art Gallery and the Woodhorn Museum. In September I will join my Whittingham Art Group in exhibiting in the Alnwick Playhouse, with the theme of Northumberland Heritage.

I may return to something I have touched on before, imagining how the landscape looked in 1913, but hill forts and landscape is something I will also return to.

I usually cycle to places I want to paint, so painting keeps me fit.