The Carrying Stream at Upright Gallery

This exhibition explores people and place, and how landscape and myth have been inextricably linked and interwoven for generations. The Carrying Stream is an old phrase revived by folklorist and poet Hamish Henderson, who observed that traditional culture is akin to a ‘carrying stream’. The surface of the stream ebbs and flows, changing and moving, while a deeper current persists, revealing a landscape of myth and lore that lies within or alongside the physical landscape.

Frances Law works across drawing, painting, print, collage and artists’ books. She is interested in understanding place from a specific perspective and exploring the spiritual relationship between people, land and nature.

Walking through the landscape and learning Scots Gaelic through map-reading have deepened her perception of place, offering insights into a once-living environment in which the human, plant and animal worlds were understood as inextricably connected to the divine.

Her current practice focuses on re-framing a cultural paradigm that, over time, has forgotten the myths and magic of our island home. She seeks instead to restore a sense of enchantment and spiritual interconnectedness, offering glimpses into mythopoetic landscapes and exploring both the known and the unknown, where the physical and spiritual realms converge.

Caroline Finlay is a Fife-based printmaker and enamel jewellery maker who graduated in Design and Craft in 1988. Following a career in jewellery design, making and teaching, she returned to printmaking in 2018, seeking a freer way to develop ideas inspired by the wild Scottish coastline and her Hebridean heritage.

Working in a semi-abstract style, Caroline explores coastal textures, weather, croft ruins and sheep pens through line, pattern and mark-making. Her practice encompasses etching, blind emboss, chine-collé and monoprint, with a particular interest in texture, hand-crafted processes and experimentation.