To contact, please write to Judy Fairbairns
Little Cuin Lodge
Dervaig, Isle of Mull
PA75 6QL
United Kingdom
or email:
judy@wildcolour.co.uk

We moved to Mull in 1978. It was, quite simply, a mad and spontaneous decision to live in a wild place. For all the years of our five children growing up, we had to make money and worked hard at various things like developing the first whale—watching business in the UK, setting up a residential recording studio, running 7 self–catering cottages, a large guest house and a working hill farm. No time to paint, although I did manage to decorate any damaged bits of furniture, wall, article of clothing.
At 49, I decided to make a big change in my life, to focus on what I wanted not that I was very sure what that was My Dad died around that time, and left me his brushes, so it was pretty obvious where the Universe was taking me. I began to paint and study painting and, since that beginning I have worked steadfastly to develop my skills, initially making more mud than sense on the canvas Luckily, my various teachers have encouraged me to take risks to know that I can always clean up and start again. Above all, to laugh at myself and to have fun. I thank them for that valuable lesson. It frees me from the restraints of perfection and keeps the frown lines at bay better than any expensive cream.
My studio looks out over a sea loch, rolling hills and a lot of sky. Its definitely a wild place. Its timeless, peaceful enough to hear natural sounds like birdsong, a running burn, the singing of the wind in the pines. Not an engine anywhere Some days I hardly see a soul apart from my otter friends or the swans that have made the banks their home. I walk in unspoiled woods, watch the seasons unfold and give way to the next. I watch blood red sunsets, the midnight sky studded with a million diamonds and best of all, the moving luminous fingers of the Aurora Borealis. This is the way it is on the island. I do love the city with all its thrum and bustle but my place of creation is right here.
I work from my own emotion centre, intuitively, and often with a rebellious disregard for proportion and exactness. In fact, if I can break a boundary, I will, either in colour or form, and I love extraordinariness—the ’otherness’ of things. I paint feelings and moods in colour, and it is more than usual for a colour to come into my mind one I would never have imagined for that part of the work. I have now learned to listen to my intuition on this, as it is always surprising and always just right. All of my inspiration comes from the natural world, which really covers every subject you can mention, to some degree or another. I am particularly intrigued with metaphysics and the beyond of everything and everyone. I move colour across the canvases, spontaneously and quickly, sometimes, to be honest, without really seeing an end result, which seems to unfold at its own pace. The spaces between the start of a piece and its always obvious conclusion, can be days, weeks or even months.
I will work with any medium and love to meet a challenge. Two commissions this year did exactly that, both clients asking me to work in ways I had not worked before. I enjoyed the process, learned a whole lot about working with a concept and a palette of selected colours and a fairly free hand in one case and, in the other, a new medium and style and definite ideas of what the completed paintings should look like.
Now I am ready for anything
Please feel free to contact me.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Glengorm Castle, Isle of Mull – September 2003
Tobermory Chocolate Factory – Summer 2004
Stirling University – 2005

SHARED
Glengorm Castle, Isle of Mull – September 2004
Hospital Trust, Stirling Centre – Summer 2003
Tore Art Gall, Black Isle – November 2004
Highland Open Exhibition – Oct 2004–April 2005
Inverness Airport – March–May2005

WEB SITES
www.wildcolour.co.uk
www.gallerynml.com
www.arteryuk.com

GALLERIES
The Luckenbooth, Tarbert
Glengorm Castle, Mull
Calgary Carthouse Gall, Mull
Tore Gallery, Black Isle
Portmore Gallery, Mull
Gallery 118, Edinburgh
Shoreline Gallery, Aberdour
Artery Gallery, Crieff
An Tobar, Mull

COMMISSIONS
Seven Images for the new Piano Bar, Glenmoriston Town House Hotel, Inverness 2005
Large Canvas for J.M Architects for new office, 64 Queen Street Edinburgh – 2005