Over the past 30 years this Scottish landscape artist has been intrigued and inspired by the crossings over the Forth Estuary, these bridges that have become icons for an ambitious small country.

Downie has climbed up, crawled below, perched on rocks close by and floated by in a variety of boats underneath in order to really explore the nature of these bridges and make new drawings. Why does she do it? Come to this talk ‘ The Art of Crossing ‘ and find out.

Kate Downie has been a practicing visual artist based in Scotland for the past 35 years, after studying Fine Art at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. She has exhibited her work extensively in both the UK and internationally.

Her interest in the social fabric of civil engineering, urbanisation and landscape has lead her into a series of extraordinary residencies over the years, including placements in a brewery, an oil rig, on the Great Wall of China and most recently on the Forth Road Bridge. Her practice includes painting, printmaking, large-scale drawing and performative drawing and she has had experience in large-scale public art projects both as a leading artist and as part of a team within diverse local community arts projects, here and in China.

For a number of years she was resident in Leith and has a large portfolio of works examining the diversity of the Firth of Forth coastline and crossings.

Her work is held in both public and private collections worldwide. She is a member of the Royal Scottish Academy, a former president of the Society of Scottish Artists and an active member of Glasgow Print Studio and Edinburgh Printmakers. Her next major solo exhibition of paintings, ‘The Anatomy of Haste’, will be at the Scottish Gallery during the Edinburgh Festival this year.

“My work attempts to transform ordinary places into poetic acts of memory”