JULIAN MASON : THE LIVING LANDSCAPE
“I have walked out of the body and into the mountain.”
— Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain
In The Living Mountain, Nan Shepherd writes of the Scottish landscape as more than something to be observed, and as a living force which can experienced through all the senses. Through walking, waiting and returning to the same places, she describes the possibility of connecting with the natural world, where the boundaries between observer and landscape begin to dissolve. Julian’s descriptions and reflections on his time painting en plein air in the highlands and islands of Scotland suggest a similar experience and understanding of the landscape. A multi-sensory feeling of being there lies at the heart of Julian’s work; his paintings are not simply records of mountains, coastlines and open spaces, but expressions of what it feels like to inhabit these remote places, to sit in the silence of a mountain or the thunder of fast flowing water. Like Shepherd, Julian approaches the natural world not from a distance, but from within — allowing himself, for a time, to become part of the landscape he paints. It is a deeply humbling and grounding experience for Julian – it is why he paints.
Spending hours alone in the landscape brings with it an acute awareness of the environment and a heightening of all of the senses. Julian describes sensing the approach of another person long before seeing them: birds fall silent, movement changes and even the air feels different. In these moments, looking becomes inseparable from listening and feeling. He is as much listening to the landscape as observing it, and spending hours and days in a place results in him becoming attuned to shifts in light, weather, birdsong and atmosphere that might otherwise pass unnoticed.
Julian has been visiting Scotland since childhood and now spends months at a time travelling through the Highlands and Islands, painting the places that continue to draw him back. Glencoe and Glen Etive, Glenfinnan, Arisaig, Skye and Iona are among the landscapes to which he repeatedly returns. Carrying his canvases and materials on his back, he works entirely within the landscape and in all weathers, allowing the conditions of each particular day to shape the paintings that emerge.
Please contact us for a preview of the exhibition, and for details of the Private View and other events.