Karen Shewan  -  Visual Artist

Living for half of the year in the Scottish Highlands, I've become fascinated by the history of the land and the memories it holds, in the piles of stones that were once homes, in the strewn rubble of old walls, the overgrown ridges marking old boundaries. For me the land evokes great sadness and a sense of loss because the people who once lived here were cleared to make way for sheep.  When out walking, I imagine what the landscape must have looked like pre-clearance, and how it became the comparative wilderness it now is. In 2018/19 I started a project to explore the Highland Clearances through my art.  In some of my work I use parts of an old photograph of an eviction which took place in Lochmaddy, North Uist circa 1895. The image is both haunting and moving, representing for me the estimated 150,000 thousand people who were displaced from their homes and lands during the late eighteenth century and the nineteenth. The photograph is used with kind permission of National Museums Scotland. Paintings which include part of the image are marked with an *.  Here are a few of my exploratory pieces.