Local scenes to take centre stage in Yule exhibition

An example of Mike Finnie's paintings.

The Yule Exhibition in Da Gadderie at Shetland Museum will feature artists Anne Bain and Mike Finnie.

The pair have been sketching and painting together for over 20 years. They have exhibited locally as well as in Scotland and Scandinavia. Both are recently retired from their professional careers and this exhibition shows some of their new work.

Bain and Finnie paint mostly in water based media with the ever changing light, colour and textures of the landscape in Shetland the continuing inspiration and stimulus for painting over the years.

Bain’s work is often about the combination of a retained memory and the “essence” of place and time, rather than necessarily an accurate representation of the landscape.

She is always drawn to the light on the horizon, patterns of light and shade and the movement between darkness and light and the light beyond that again.

Finnie endlessly sketches the older crofthouses and settlements throughout Shetland and over time his sketchbooks have become a record of a heritage which is becoming lost.

Much of their work has focused on the relationship between old settlement, “toonships”, the sea and the land. Both artists share a great passion for croft houses that seem to have grown out of the landscape in Shetland and appear so right in their settings, an enthusiasm tempered by a concern for their future.

Bain and Finnie are dedicating this exhibition to the late Bobby Robertson with whom they spent many happy painting weekends throughout Shetland.

As part of “The Company of Incidental Artists”, weekends, usually in Yell and Unst, were spent sketching, painting and walking as well developing an appreciation of good food and wine.

A percentage of the proceeds from this exhibition will go to Cancer Research.

The exhibition runs from 16th November to 19th December and will open at 2pm on Saturday 16th.