Seeing and feeling... with a touch of sass
Kim Canale is on a mission to bring people together through art, beauty and fine food.
In her exhibition at The Ceilidh Place in Ullapool, Canale (inset) is doing just that. Last night, this haven of Highland hospitality welcomed diners to dinner with an Italian twist.
Canale’s Cantina – or Canale On The Wall, Canale On The Plate – was hosted against the backdrop of the Montrosebased artist’s exhibition, Two Rooms: Seeing + Feeling.
“It’s the essence of people coming together,” Canale, a third generation Italian, tells me. “We need beauty more than ever and this comes through seeing and feeling. And taking time out to look at art.”
Canale created more than 20 paintings for this show; a mix of seascapes, contemporary landscapes and semi abstract work. She has been influenced by Anglo-Scottish painter, Joan Eardley, who made some of her greatest paintings up the coast from Montrose at the village of
Catterline. Canale’s land and seascapes are hugely atmospheric.
Scraped back and using the barest amount of paint in a limited palette, she creates a vivid sense of place. Her paintings sizzle with sea-spray, salt and sass.
A series of flower paintings began in 2019 when she did a residency at writer Virginia Woolf’s home in Rodmell, East Sussex.
This was followed by a visit to Sissinghurst Castle in Kent in 2021, where Woolf’s fellow Bloomsbury Group members created a worldrenowned garden.
“At Sissinghurst,” Canale explains, “I toyed with the idea of tangled love affairs and the tranquillity and beauty you feel when you’re in the garden, and merging the two. If I am trying to do anything, it is to try and tap into our memories of exploring beauty and what it is to be alive.”
Two Rooms: Seeing + Feeling is at The Ceilidh Place in Ullapool until Jan 1