Add Caol Ruadh To Your To Do List

If you haven’t yet visited Caol Ruadh (pronounced Col Ru) Sculpture Park in Kyles of Bute, make sure you add it to your to do list immediately. It is simply the most atmospheric and beguiling place, and well worth the journey. It is tucked away, but that is actually what is so irresistible and magical about it. It opens on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th May 2015, 2-5pm, in conjunction with Colintraive Scottish Open Gardens Weekend, and is then open to the public from Thursday 28th May until 30th September. And if you have already been, go back, it’s different every time.

Caol Ruadh is owned by Karen Scotland and run with great passion and enthusiasm by Karen and her business partner Anne Edmonds. Each summer season they invite a group of artists to show their work in one of the many indoor and outdoor locations throughout the gardens, and as landscape architects the space they have created is a perfect backdrop. Previous exhibitors include Hans Clausen, Duncan Robertson, Andrea Geile, Kevin Dagg, Emma Herman-Smith and Illona Morrice.

The 2015 Summer Show at Caol Ruadh

Lorna Fraser

One of Caol Ruadh’s regular exhibitors is ceramics artist Lorna Fraser. Her botanical forms have been seen in a variety of different spots throughout the garden and are so at home that you would be forgiven for thinking they had always been there.

Wall of Seedlings, 2014 installation at Caol Ruadh by Lorna Fraser

However this year Lorna’s work is in a more unexpected venue, the Summerhouse. Still is a ghostly, apparition like garden shed full of porcelain seedlings. It invokes memories of days gone by and the happy, hazy days of summer. The soft, glowing light emanating from the shed seems to both give the reassuring heat of summer while also creating an eerie other worldly effect. Simultaneously comforting and disconcerting.

Still, porcelain installation by Lorna Fraser

Carol Sinclair

I was delighted to be invited to exhibit my own art work this year at Caol Ruadh in the Apple House, a beautiful little building which was initially used to store the fruit grown on the estate. It is now a perfect installation space with dark wooden interiors and light filled window spaces and gave a wonderful backdrop for my work.

The Apple House and details of Adrift, a porcelain work by Carol Sinclair.

Drifts explores the importance of memory and its role in defining who we are. Delicate and fragile fragments of translucent white porcelain are used to express the complexity of our personal connections, and seek to balance what is present with the random absences that are created by time. Drifts presents pieces that are intended to encourage contemplation and offer the viewer a moment of calm reflection. Each of the 3 pieces which comprise the installation in the Apple House use light in different ways to accentuate shadows, emphasise connections and allow the viewer to draw their own interpretation from the abstract shapes.

Drifting Thoughts, framed porcelain works by Carol Sinclair

Caol Ruadh is open 28th May to 30th Sept 2015, Thurs to Sun & Bank Holidays 11am – 6pm
Please note that it is closed on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday by appointment only
Admission : Adults £5, children under 16 free
Dogs welcome on a lead.

For full details on how to find the Sculpture Park check out the website www.scottishsculpturepark.com or email info@scottishsculpturepark.com

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Add Caol Ruadh To Your To Do List

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