Wherever the mood takes you
Artist Ruth Brownlee fell head over heels in love with Shetland the first time she visited. She tells BEE BAILEY about her love for its wild weather, her need to be by the sea and her 20-year quest to paint the perfect picture
WHEN Ruth Brownlee first stepped foot on Rerwick beach, she felt a profound connection with Shetland’s rugged landscape, its turquoise sea and golden sand, the big, wide sky. It was a pull that changed the course of her life.
“I can still recall standing on that beach thinking, ‘oh my goodness, what a place’, with that light and the atmosphere. It was such a life changing moment,” she says.
“The light in Shetland is just amazing. It changes constantly. The summer, with the nice bright summer days, is lovely, but that weekend it was misty. It was so atmospheric.
“At that particular moment I thought, ‘I must come back to paint’.”
A series of ‘sliding doors’ moments had led Edinburgh-born Ruth to the beach that day in 1998.
At the time, her painting had taken a backseat while she ran a successful business making greeting cards from abstract shape and form. A Shetland shop owner saw her work at a trade fair and thought it would look good in frames. As Ruth had left the stand for 10 minutes, the woman picked up Ruth’s business card and later gave it to a gallery owner back at home.
Ruth was asked to send some pieces up to exhibit. Then a Shetland Museum curator who’d seen the exhibition invited her to visit to teach an art workshop.
She went. And as she stood on the beach afterwards and looked out to sea, she knew she’d be back.
That was in July. By October, Ruth had fallen in love with Tommy Watt, the man who’d invited her to run the workshop, left her old life behind and moved to the island, which is more than 100 miles from mainland Scotland.
Tommy, who spearheaded the opening of the Shetland Museum and Archives in 2007, sadly fell ill and died 10 years ago but Ruth, 49, and their 13-year-old daughter, still call Shetland home.
As captivated by the sea and sky and ever-changing elements as she was that first day, Ruth has been on a quest to paint what she believes is the perfect picture of it ever since.
Her beguiling paintings have drawn wide acclaim, often selling quicker than the Shetland weather can change. The layers of scrapedback acrylic and the speed at which she works harness the movement of the North Sea and the texture of the clouds, transporting the viewer to the beach with their cheeks turning pleasantly numb in the wind.
She paints with a dozen shades of blue and green, greys and whites, touches of yellows and pinks. There are storm clouds and dark, brooding skies, waves tumbling to the shore, glimpses of light hitting the water, never boats or swimmers or seals, just sea and sky. Although every day’s work is of the same subject, each one is different, capturing a moment and a mood. What she sees is more than most.
“We’ve got a house on the sea and I’m forever watching the sky and the sea and the relationship between them,” she says.
“I’m always looking, even when I’m driving; I’m always watching. I have it all in my head so when it comes to being in the studio and I’ve got the board in front of me, I’ve got the image. Sometimes a colour will make me play around and it can take me somewhere different. I don’t always end up with what I planned out in the first place but I think it’s being open to changes.”
It’s not just the subject matter Ruth loves but her materials, too. Her workbench is covered with tubes and bottles of paint, brushes with ballooning mushroom-shaped bristles and dried acrylic on the ends, jars and old rags, all covered with splodges of paint where she’s used her hands to add texture to a picture.
“What’s often overlooked in painting is paint is such a wonderful medium,” she says. “The beauty of it can take you on a journey.”
Ruth graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a BA Hons in drawing, painting and tapestry and
People have said, ‘why don’t you put boats and houses in?’ That’s not what it’s about for me – it’s about the sea, the changing light and the mood Ruth Brownlee
a love of weaving large scale tapestries. She enjoyed working with wool as a medium, but even at art school the tutors would tell say, ‘you’re really a painter, not a weaver’.
With hindsight, Ruth thinks they were right. Her ‘impatience’ is better suited to the speed with which she can work with acrylics.
Now, painting and her teenage daughter are her life and she enjoys trying to create a perfect interpretation of what Shetland means to her.
Of course there are times when it’s summery, when the sky is cerulean and the sun bounces off the buildings, afternoons when the coastal wind is warm enough to forego a coat or take a dip in the sea, but Ruth loves to catch the tempestuous weather in her paintings, the way the light and the colour of the sea changes from moment to moment, the invigorating power of a dreich day.
She realised recently that her love of wind and rain comes from growing up with a farmer for a dad, being outdoors in all weathers.
“I’ve grown up being very aware of the weather. It’s definitely been a huge part of my work. I’ll look up and say, ‘look at that sky’ and people will say, ‘what sky?’ They don’t really appreciate weather,” she says.
“When it’s moody, people say it’s horrible weather and write it off, where I find horrible weather really dramatic. Shetland has a wildness that suits my nature. A lot of people just don’t see the beauty in it.
“I’m a believer in getting out there and experiencing all weathers. It’s exhilarating, Shetland in wild weather; but it can be hard work. It can be very grey, and when there’s no sun or light it can be hard going. A perfect day for me would be when it’s stormy and the sun’s hitting the sea – and if my daughter’s at school I can get on with painting.”
Doing solo exhibitions and having a big following on Instagram has brought down the barriers between painter and viewer, and Ruth has connected with many of them, listening to their comments and questions, mulling their opinions over.
“People have said, ‘why don’t you put boats and houses in?’ That’s not what it’s about for me – it’s about the sea, the changing light and the mood,” she says. “Over the years I’ve really noticed people saying, ‘you always have a certain light,’ or ‘there’s always a bit of light coming in’. I’m not a spiritual person but I think they see that as a sign of hope.”
Ruth is well aware that Shetland holds a magic, even for many who’ve never visited; the lure of a life that one imagines, perhaps unrealistically, is simpler, more free of the trappings and commitments that bog us down, somewhere to be more in tune with nature and the elements. Her Airbnb, a 1760s townhouse called Sea Winds which has views over Bain’s Beach in Lerwick, is usually booked up way in advance, but while the welcome is warm, actually living in Shetland is most definitely not for fair weather folk. “We get romantic about far away, wild places; people long for them,” Ruth says. “I had one guest, she had to leave early because she just couldn’t stand the rain. It was an unfortunate week; perpetual wind and rain. She was thinking Shetland was sunny and beautiful. “It’s not for everyone... but for people who do love wild and dramatic, Shetland’s wonderful. “Through lockdown I was very aware of a lot of people coming to me for sea paintings and I can relate to that, if you are in a city you yearn for the sea. There’s something about it; it’s that openness and solitude – as an artist it’s an ongoing mission to try to capture it. I am on this journey to try to get this perfect painting of the sea.
“There was one that I did quite a few years ago that was quite close but I guess I’ll never get there. That’s why I keep painting. That’s the drive.”
Ruth hopes to travel down to Bath soon when 30 of her paintings will be on show at Beaux Arts, a gallery she is fond of and had always hoped to exhibit at.
But she is always happy to get home to this place that has become so entwined with her heart. City life is good, she says, but she is glad to be back by the sea.
In her studio she puts on music and gets a fresh board out. When the weather’s warm, she’ll open the windows and listen to the birds singing and the gulls squawking as they ride the thermals outside. From here she can look out over Shetland’s shore, see the seals bobbing about, and once a bull whale that came close to the beach, showing off its fin. But still, every day she wants to walk beside the water.
While some artists feel they have to endlessly create what their admirers expect of them, Ruth has no such concerns. She is blissfully happy to go on painting her watery muse and the moody skies above forevermore.
“Everybody’s got different things they love about the sea,” she says. “For me it’s the ever-changing mood. I feel at peace. Just being by the sea makes me feel like I belong.”