Wendy Sutherland the Bards and the Birds-issu 2026

Birds & Bards WENDY SUTHERLAND

COVER IMAGE

Wren (detail)

mixed media | 30cm x 30cm

+44 (0) 1463 783 230

art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk

Kilmorack Gallery, Inverness-shire iv4 7al SCOTLAND

Birds & Bards

WENDY SUTHERLAND

20 MARCH - 18 APRIL 2026

Birds & Bards

Wendy Sutherland’s latest collection of works reminds me of the deepest wonders in nature and of how, if we look beyond the Instagram snap of mountains and loch, there are patterns and rhythms that are too often noticed only by birds, and the bards of old. These are the deep-nature connections that make life magical. Birds have always been woven into stories: Odin has his ravens Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memory) that whisper tales of Midgard. They are symbolic of knowledge. Other birds have their own truths: the swallow tells of summer’s arrival. It is lucky and sacred. The swan straddles the sleeping and waking worlds, as well as life and death.

The eagle with its golden feathers is like the sun. It sees all and renews itself – and the wren is cunning and gentle, resourceful and bold. The owl is of course wise.

These fifteen paintings are inspired by the artist’s feeling of each bird. Sutherland has jumped in, becoming – quickening and awakening the nature-hugged feelings about the world that we feel when we are close to birds. They are also inspired by the landscape around Brora where Sutherland lives and works, and by her father, a minister, who as a hobby photographed birds and their eggs. A bird’s egg, rather like these paintings, contain life inside their patterned shells.

Tony Davidson, Kilmorack Gallery

Swan ink, acrylic and spray paint

61cm x 135cm

The swan is associated with the Celtic goddess Caer and with this dreams, sleeping, prophecy and inner and outer worlds, life and death. The swan is the soul.

The Owl represents the Cailleach, the goddess of Winter.

Tawny Owl (Cailleach Oidhche) : old woman of the night

Barn Owl (Cailleach Oidhche Gheal) : white old woman of the night

The Swallow represents Chliodhna (Cleena) who is associated with beauty, the sea and the afterlife. She brings luck, is sacred and is a symbol of summer’s arrival

Swallow ink, acrylic and spray paint

76cm x 120cm

The eagle represents Intelligence, renewal and courage. She gains power from the sun, ‘eye of the sun,’ with feathers like the sun’s rays.

Associated with feeling and subconscious, knowledge transformed into wisdom and heights and depths of intellect and emotion.

Eagle ink, acrylic and spray paint

130cm x 130cm

Migration ink, acrylic and finished in oil on canvas 106cm x 183cm

49cm x 91cm

The heron is associated with transitions. To bards it gave wisdom and knowledge. She is the messenger between worlds - bridging earth, water and sky with the human realm.

The wren represents humility and cunning, reminding us that small is beautiful and of gentleness and subtlety. She is resourcefulness and bold.

graphite and oil on board

30cm x 30cm

The corvid is a associated with magic, creation and spiritual strength

mixed media

40cm x 58cm

20cm

mixed media

20cm x 20cm

20cm x 20cm

My dad is a bird photographer, so I grew up surrounded by images of birds. There was often a bird in a box in our shed being nursed back to health, and Dad was known locally as ‘the bird man’. These graceful creatures have been a backdrop in my life, both physically and spiritually, with my dad citing an epiphany experience when the sheer beauty of a lapwing changed the course of his life.

As a child, a drawing of a bird was always my birthday gift to my father. So the ‘Birds & Bards’ project is a natural piece in the jigsaw of my own art story and one I was excited to explore. I feel grateful for the ancestral legacy, not only from my dad, but also Celtic folklore. Looking into the Celtic mythology surrounding birds, I discovered that each bird is shrouded in its own symbolism. I started holding these themes and ideas loosely in my head, setting my intention to work with them. A bit like climbing onto an imaginary trampoline and jumping into the unknown to see where it took me!

The stories handed down from ancient Scottish bards became a light dusting of snow over the canvas that, when thawed, left behind an impression or attribute of each bird I focused on. Bird fables help us puzzle out this life. Their gentleness, courage, transformation, death, dreams and renewal provide an invisible sharing that goes one step beyond the birds’ beauty or the play and purpose of their songs.

You don’t need to know any of the folklore to receive gifts from the birds; just allowing yourself to be captivated and enchanted in their presence has the potential for joy.

I hope I have managed to distil some of their spirit into the pieces so that they can work with or without the bird metaphors behind them.

I thank the birds for being the messengers they are, and the bards for telling their ancient stories, creating a bridge into the subconscious realm of signs and magic! I wanted to make a visual language for the space between the two worlds. It’s been an abstract journey: walking alongside the old tales that saturate this highland land and retelling them through mark making with brush, spray cans, graphite and bracken.

Wendy Sutherland, February 2026

+44 (0) 1463 783 230

art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk

Kilmorack Gallery, Inverness-shire iv4 7al SCOTLAND

Wendy Sutherland (b.1975) graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1997. A unique voice in Scottish Landscape painting and an award-winning artist, Sutherland brings an ecstatic quality of wonder and reverence for all that is held in the landscape. Represented in collections worldwide, Sutherland lives and works in Brora, Northern Scotland.