Portrait of the artist at work - Article by David Plante, photograph by Ronnie Galloway .

I love artists' studios.However serious the artists are, I always have the vivid sense of "playing" in the midst of old tins of paint brushes, paint-splattered floors, heaps of rags and, most importantly, incongruities such as bent-up bicycle wheels and pages from magazines taped to walls and even childrens toys- these incongruities referring , I can only guess, to myterious inspirations. Silvy's studio, perhaps part of old stables, is filled with references to subjects of her work, as if her studio were also a store room for rakes and pieces of aluminium sideing and heavy-duty black plastic bags, which at first seemingly incongruous, are all inspirations to her.As her life is most fully lived in the Lowlands of Scotland the references to her art are to the landscape, not simply as landscape but to farms, working farms. No picturesque-ness here, but tough work, for even when the paintings abstract the fields into patterns, one is aware of their earthiness. The large black circles are infact those round bales of silage wrapped in black plastic to protect them.And there is no mistaking the huge tyres-A great panorama of them,painted with vigorous devotion-as first of all used for what such monumental tyres are meant for (in their new role to weigh down silage in the silage pits), and then as patterns of large black ovals highlighted in bright white.I should say that, as majestic as the tyres appear, they also have the majesty of items of hard work and when no longer of use, rousing in the viewer a certain role of noble sympathy for what usually rouses little interest beyond the utilitarian.Silvy is making arresting art out of her lived life.

David Plante 2006