Laura Drever | Glimro

LAURA DREVER GLIMRO

LAURA DREVER

GLIMRO

5 - 28 March 2026

GLIMRO

GLIMRO – A PHOSPHORESCENT GLOW, A GLEAM, BEAM OF BRIGHTNESS

Glimro marks Laura Drever’s first solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery and brings together a significant and deeply personal body of new paintings and works on paper. What we see here reflects a long and sustained relationship with the place that she comes from, shaped by walking, looking, and returning, again and again, to the same land in Orkney.

For Drever, landscape is not a fixed subject but a lived experience. Each Orcadian carries an individual understanding of the islands, formed through memory, movement, and attention, and in Glimro, Drever articulates her own experience of it. The paintings are structured around the four seasons of Drever’s Orkney, revealing the ancient character and quiet mysticism of the islands through shifting light, weather, and growth. As she has described, these works grow from paying attention, noticing, and from making herself available to moments of fleeting light that may last only a short time, yet linger in memory.

Rather than literal depictions, the paintings are recollections and reimaginings, balancing abstraction with recognition. Built through slow, repetitive mark making, they hold a sense of time passing, echoing the rhythm of long walks through the land. Seen together, the works form a cumulative portrait of Orkney that is both intimate and expansive, rooted in deep familiarity and open to change.

THE SCOTTISH GALLERY

GLIMRO

Glimro, the title of the current exhibition by Laura Drever, is a dialect word taken from Orkney Norn, an ancient variation of a language spoken since Viking times. It refers to the interaction of different light conditions which impact land and sea; a phosphorescence which creates a glow, gleam or glimmer across the sky.

Continuing this theme, each work has its own Old Norse name, carefully selected to reflect the individual character of the subject. Location is central to Laura’s art; her sense of place is finely developed and is inextricably linked to her native tongue as well as each featured location. Vernacular place names give an extra layer of texture, rhythm and meaning, and reflect the knowledge of generations of islanders who worked on land and sea. These titles help root her abstract style in time and space and assist access to these multi-layered and complex paintings.

Drever’s deep connection to her island home and its historic landscape is apparent in each work. During her career she has developed an intimate relationship with the land: circumnavigating the coastline in all weather conditions has provided an innate understanding of the environment she inhabits. This technique is physical and requires discipline and commitment; out in all weathers her routine consists of four hours walking followed by another four painting. Being in the natural world

is essential inspiration for her art, the style dictated by the nature and tone of the day as well as her own emotional interaction with the space around her.

Motifs and shapes recur, echoing subjects from previous exhibitions: Teebro and Limbro, descriptive words referring to light conditions. The curve of hill, ancient monument and field boundary all feature. Larger works allow a deeper exploration of Orkney’s treeless and windswept landscape. Developed over time, their scale captures the breadth and volume of her subject, creating real impact. Smaller works are intimate and allow subtle observation. The use of gold, flecks and daubs is particularly effective, highlighting the interaction of light with wind and rain. Her repeated use of the horizontal line, often placed at the top of the composition, cleverly fixes the viewer in the landscape and creates perspective.

Glimro leads us through each season in the calendar year and allows us to accompany the artist in her exploration of shifting weather patterns and their moods. Often exhilarating, this fascinating journey allows us to both share and experience Laura’s deep passion for her island home.

Ann Marwick is an oral historian and author from Orkney, and a longstanding friend of the artist.

ANN MARWICK

Orkney is an incredibly dynamic landscape. It’s always in movement because the wind is always blowing and the sea is always moving and the light is constantly shifting as the clouds pass. It’s never static. The grass is always shimmering. Something’s always in motion. Laura’s paintings catch that with their rippling, iridescent surfaces built up through densely tessellated, repetitive brushmarks. Laura talks about making the paintings move, making the light come alive within it. These paintings make the viewer move too. Every new angle of vision or slant of light opens up new ways of seeing them.

Samantha Clark

SPRING

7

2025

8

2025

SUMMER

As late summer gales start to whip and dance through ripening barley and the season’s last cuts of silage leave momentary stripes of lush green across butter-yellow fields, it is hard not to see the Orkney landscape through the lens of an artist. But it requires a very acute and attuned eye to capture its essence and the sensation of being immersed and surrounded by it and express this in visual terms. For Laura Drever, it is precisely this experience and the ever-changing rhythms of the landscape that she sets out to capture in her work. Carol Dunbar

9

AUTUMN

WINTER

LAURA DREVER b.1981

Laura Drever is an Orcadian painter based in Kirkwall. Born in Orkney, she studied Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 2003 with First Class Honours. Her work is rooted in long periods of walking and observation, translating memory, light, and movement into layered, expressive paintings. Balancing abstraction and landscape, her work explores the rhythms and shifting atmosphere of the northern environment. Drever has exhibited widely across Scotland, including at The Pier Arts Centre, The Scottish Gallery and the Royal Scottish Academy, and her practice remains closely connected to Orkney’s landscape and language.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2026 Glimro, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2024 Limro, Browns Gallery, Inverness Frontiers: Painting in Scotland Now, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

2023 Orcadia, Browns Gallery, Inverness Soulisquoy at 40, The Pier Arts Centre, Orkney

2022 The Northern Isles, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Teebro, Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney

2021 Walks, Tooin, Kirkwall, Orkney

2020 Many New Dances, Virtual exhibition in aid of MND Scotland

2019 Fea, Exhibition Room Old Library, Kirkwall, Orkney

2016 Scarsa, Tooin, Kirkwall, Orkney

2014 Skein, Custom House, Kirkwall, Orkney

Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition:

Laura Drever Glimro

5 - 28 March 2026

Exhibition can be viewed online at: scottish-gallery.co.uk/lauradrever

ISBN: 978-1-917803-15-1

Designed and Produced by The Scottish Gallery

Printed by Pure Print

Cover: Roseness, 2025, oil on canvas, 150 x 150 cm (cat.9)

All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders.

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