Rebecca Styles

Breath. Blood. Heat, what it takes to be human?

The Outer Hebrides has shown me very quickly that we are not so different from the landscape in which we exist.

Wind. Water. Sunshine, the land too is shaped and evolving and in its own constant battle with the elements on which its survival depends. I find myself emotionally invested at the sight of the naked ground cowering with the onslaught of a gale, the surprise of the unexpected stream that carves its path through sodden ground after heavy rainfall, the almost audible sigh when the howling wind retreats and a light heat bathes the battered ground once again because in this wild and glorious place I feel all this too.

I want to paint to understand, to mimic the process and to express the feeling of magnificent vulnerability that comes with standing defiant in the face of a force 10 gale, so this is where I find my creative energy now, in the wilderness, in the storm, splattered with paint and feeling very alive.

From a young age I loved being outdoors, fresh air was my comfort, and days out on the Yorkshire moors my backdrop. Art came easily to me and I studied to improve my skills at Bradford College, Yorkshire followed by Falmouth College of Art, Cornwall.

For many years after college I embraced my wandering spirit and took different jobs all over the country but reunited with art when I opened a studio/ gallery in Sidmouth East Devon. I met my musician husband shortly after and we eloped in our van on a journey of creative discovery. For five years we lived and worked from the back of the camper then one day bought ourselves a canal boat on which to continue our journey. We were four years afloat before the need for more space, more isolation and less traffic got too great and we began to search for a piece of real honest wilderness.

The Isle Of Lewis caught our attention and before we knew it we had purchased a plot of land before ever even visiting.  On arrival we knew we had made a bold and brilliant decision, that was when we decided to build ourselves home on terra firma and make a life here on a little rock in the Atlantic ocean that encouraged both of us creatively.

So here I am dedicated to the process of making art and locked in a firm and beautiful embrace with nature, hoping that through my work I can relay something of the subtle yet revealing personality of this magnificent place.