"'Artist in the Blubell Wood'" Photograph

The exquisite, wild and natural landscape of Argyll, on the west coast of Scotland, rich with hidden treasures, textured with layer upon layer of history and inhabited by spirits of times long past, provides the backdrop to a shared love of a unique place and a collaborative work. Sara Qualter has worked with interiors and styled spaces for many years. She has a head full of unusual ideas, bizarre set designs and styling concepts which are screaming to get out. Bill Baillie is a professional photographer. His passion is capturing the ever changing landscape with his camera. It is not unusual to find him hanging from a tree or neck deep in the ocean, determined to get the perfect shot. Together they put their individual passions into their shared projects and produce work which is slightly unexpected and a little out of context. The excitement of discovering hidden and often long forgotten locations and the thirst to understand the lives that were enjoyed, the struggles, the joy, industry, opulence and frivolity, that those physical places were witness to, is what drives both artists. To look at such a place, in the death throes of decay, with so much now lost to living memory, one initially considers only the frailty and futility of our fragile human life and the overwhelming power of time and nature. But Sara & Bill wish to provoke the viewer to look closer; hint at the layers upon layers of history hidden beneath the surface, suggest fleeting shadows of life. Reality is, after all, simply appearance to mind! /