Fiona Millar only seriously started painting around eight years ago and is self taught. Her talent as a picture framer had up until then been her main focus. Combining her family life with the demands and disciplines of her art is no mean task, but her upbringing among sisters who eventually attended art college and a father who was an art dealer no doubt provides her with inspiration.
The rolling hills of Galloway are nurtured in her landscapes, while her still life offerings recall works of the 1930's which are prevalent in her father's business.
Fiona has exhibited across the UK and her recent initial solo exhibition was a sell-out.

Visit the Flat Cat Gallery at the Homes & Interiors Scotland Exhibition at the SECC Glasgow. It's the only show in Scotland dedicated to quality interiors. Now well established and a key date in the diary of design conscious individuals from Scotland and afar it already boasts an impressive selection of leading interiors companies onboard for 2008. Homes & Interiors Scotland exhibition is organised by Scotland's biggest selling home interest magazine, Homes & Interiors Scotland. Each issue features stunning lavishly photographed homes, interior design, architecture, property, art, news, views and exciting new concepts.

Summer Exhibition with works by Alan, Richmond, Catherine Rayner, Mooie Scott, Nigel Bridges & Philip Braham

Opening Sunday 10th August 2 - 5pm
The exhibition runs Thursday - Monday until 31st August

Plot 19 Gallery, 9 Allanbank Gardens, Lauder, TD2 6AB

Tel: 01578 722 135
In association with CALA Homes

Catherine Rayner lives and works in Edinburgh. She works from home where her cat Ena sits on her desk all day and watches her draw. As well as Ena, she has a guinea pig called Marvin, a dog called Ellie and a horse called Shannon. "My work is based on creatures. Each animal I paint is brimming with character. It belongs to a larger picture which viewers are invited to imagine."
"My experience as a children’s book illustrator and author help to create these representations of animals, which are full of their own history and narrative. I try to add a slight air of mystery so that each viewer can identify personally with the piece. The animals appear to live beyond the frames in which they are exhibited."

Lesley was born in Glasgow in 1959, and attended Exeter College of Art where she obtained a BA(hons) in painting. After living in the south for many years, she returned back to Scotland where she set up home in the glorious Scottish Borders where she has lived since. For many years now she has scoured the Borders countryside, never tiring of recording the sights through sketching. Returning to the studio, she translates memories and drawings into finished works on canvas, often allowing the more dramatic elements of a scene to develop through the language of paint; the final painting often feeling like the end of a little journey. Lesley describes every painting as “the creation of an exciting new world- one which journeys on from reality”. Lesley has exhibited extensively throughout Scotland and abroad , most recently in Los Angeles where her paintings have enjoyed much success.

Helen Tabor was born in Middlesex, now living in the Scottish Borders, and travelled extensively in the far east during the 1980's and 1990's. She likes working on a broad canvas so that the paint can be applied expressively, interacting with areas of collage, used as a base on which to build the painting aiming for strong simple areas of colour out of which objects emerge vaguely, endeavouring to create a particular atmosphere. Touches of gold feature in her work, confessing to a belief in the slightly magical and exotic feel of the colour. Helen's still life with simple figures & small landscapes have been inspired by Scottish painters. such as John Maxwell and Anne Redpath but has also been influenced by the enigmatic works of Picasso and Gauguin.

Art moves freely across many borders and nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than with the Northumberland based artist, Micheal Ewart. A native of the mining communities around Felton and Ashington. Micheal's work is exclusively with oils - a medium in his words "that allows me to explore the feel of the subject". A self taught artisit influenced by an array of English 20th century masters, ex-school teacher Micheal's first exhibition was to his fellow Northumbrians in 1980. Nowadays his work is displayed in galleries north and south of Hadrian's wall and occasionally in Spain. Everday scenes - a beach, a harbour, a rainy day, street scenes, people going about their everyday business - works of amazingly simplicity, but with an immortality that brings enjoyment to others.

"My recent work is inspired by the Scottish islands; the coastal areas of Wester Ross as well as the coast of Northumberland." Michael Dobbins.
Working under Liz Tate and Virginia Bodman, I completed a BA (Hons) Fine Art (Painting) in 1995, at Sunderland University. Later (2004) I graduated with an MA Art & Design in Context under Gary Powers, at the same University. As well as 2D work, I also construct steel sculpture, for private, corporate and public commision."

Linda Kent has for many years had the sea as a central theme in her paintings. Now thought mainly an abstract painter, she is often drawn back to the sea for its vastness, many moods and energizing forces.
The works are some of the results of her connection with the inspiring elements. Theyt include framed works on plywood and paper (behind glass) and canvasses in oil and acrylic.

Lesley's inspiration comes from her roots in the Scottish landscape, but also from Yorkshire, Northumberland and Wordsworth's Lake District. She is concerned with the landscape, the forms and shapes which change through the seasons and the weather. Sweeping, dramatic skies, the power of Nature in wind and rain reappear in her work. Lesley uses oils, watercolours and mostly acrylic. She may use collage to add depth to the image.

Her images are often from memory, but she also uses a sketchbook. Her aim is to convey the sense and feeling of a place, rather than an exact representation. She loves fluid, expressive mark-making, working intuitively, enjoying the process of paint on the canvas.

Martine Devine originally discovered an artistic ability in portraiture and wildlife, moving onto landscapes which have now become my recognized field in a distinctive style.
Employing colour theory, varied use of tone and differing brushstrokes to present a contemporary image of the landscape, aiming to change the perception of the landscape seen by the viewer : inspired by minimalism, spare with detail, encouraging a regard for simplicity. Colour, abstraction, and line give distance in sky and land, sometimes altering tonal values and other times verging towards flat blocks of colour to emphasise basic shapes.

Fiona Millar only seriously started painting around seven years ago and is self taught. Her talent as a picture framer had up until then been her main focus. Combining her family life with the demands and disciplines of her art is no mean task, but her upbringing among sisters who eventually attended art college and a father who was an art dealer no doubt provides her with inspiration.
The rolling hills of Galloway are nurtured in her landscapes, while her still life offerings recall works of the 1930's which are prevalent in her father's business.
Fiona has exhibited across the UK and her recent initial solo exhibition was a sell-out.

David Hay lives in the Scottish Borders village of Yetholm. His paintings relate to the local landscape, travel and places remembered. Sources are environmental....natural or built....often beautiful but sometimes disturbing and threatening.
Atmosphere and the effect of changing light on the mood of his subjectsare of great interest to me.
I use waterbased underpainting then work and rework the painting with glazes of colour until the image becomes established. In 2006 David Hay became a Professional Member of Visual Arts Scotland with recent exhibitions in Bamburgh, Cumbria and Kranenburg.

Andrew Walker lives in the Scottish Borders where much of his work is made "en plein air" in the hills and fields around his home at Smailholm. He also spends a lot of time working in the Languedoc region of Southern France, where as with many artisits before him he is attracted to the light and colour of the Mediterranean. He has won several awards including the "Ruth Davidson Memorial Scholarship" and is represented in several important museum collections.

Rachel Phillimore: Hooky & Proggy Textiles.
Using the traditional skills of hooky and proggy matting Rachel makes rugs and wall hangings. The rugs are made from woollen fabrics which make them both warm and durable. Velvets, silks and sparkles are worked into the designs for wall hangings.
She uses the materials like a palette, having gathered and cut them, the colours are carefully selected for the design.
Current pieces exhibited are from the Shorelines: The artists work tried to reflect the larger sand lines and the smaller collections of sea treasures, like fossils, soft coloured weed and dull shined sea worn glass. In her work Rachel uses subtle textiles and materials as diverses as very old wall paper, faded silks or fabric with a history.

Gill Tyson studied at Edinburgh College of Art and The University of Edinburgh, for an MA(Hons) in Fine Art. Gill's work is mainly lithography. She works directly on to the stone, without too much preliminary drawing, with one stone leading on to the next, interacting and responding to each layer of colour, rather than having a rigid preset idea of the final image.
"I am drawn to harsh and bare landscapes, often severe and remote, and more often than not about the point where land meets sea meets sky, the human presence is humbled but there. A romantic tradition. In a tumultuous Orcadian sea/land/cloud, it's in a sliver of wind turbine; in the desert it's staked out in kilometre posts; in the Lofotens it's a telegraph post with a poster for the circus against the arctic ice blink".

A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, Lindsay Turk lives and works in Fife. Whether it is her vast seas and skies, ancient forest scenes or plants and flowers of intricate design, her work is underpinned by a consistent attraction to capturing the light and atmosphere of a single moment or a particular place
Through her work attention is drawn to the subtle changes, repetitions, rhythms and cycles within the natural world: a world defined and sustained by light which emphasises the passing of time and highlights fleeting moments.

Tom Fitszimmons, born in Edinburgh, trained as a stone mason and then as a lecturer at Edinburgh's Telford College for 20 years. Over the years his interest in artisitc stone carving grew and his interest in the wildlife of Scotland and carving merged. Tom finds inspiration from his time sea kayaking in the Forth, on the west coast watching birds from his kayak and hill walking with his wife and dogs in the beautiful Scottish Borders. Tom has exhibited a number of pieces in several galleries across the Borders and continuse to create carvings and private commisions from his Lauder home. Tom would not have started out on his creative carving journey without the assistance and encouragement of the Flat Cat Gallery for which he is most grateful.