Dumfries Courier December 30th, 2005

FINE ART DOWN ON THE FARM

Silage pits and photodegradable plastics may not sound like the stuff of inspiration for an artist-but don't tell that to locally based painter Silvy Weatherall.

As a farmers wife, she is fascinated by the agricultural landscape that surrounds her.And that includes old tyres used to weight down the plastic sheets covering piles of winter feed and the strips of polythene protecting maize crops from the frost.

The patterns formed by the tyres and the ploughed maize field provide the subjects for two of the works in her new series of large paintings.

Silvy, of Crochmore House, Irongray, has picked up her paintbrush again after a break.

For the last decade she has been concentrating on bringing up her four children,aged between ten and four, and has spent three years in Hong Kong and two in Sydney Australia.

Some of her paintings went on show last month in an exhibition entitled "Environmental" at a gallery in Stroud,Gloucestershire.She has also been selected to take part in this region's "Spring Fling 2006"

"The accelerator is on and I am working quite hard"she said.

Silvy studied fine Art at Camberwell School of Art in London and then became an Artist in residence for a year in the Philippines where she held several exhibitions.

In Hong Kong she produced murals for hospitals and an original artwork that was reproduced as a major company's Christmas card.

During the past two years,Silvy has been running Shawhead Primary School's afterschool art club.

Since moving with her husband onto the farm near Dumfries,she has become increasingly aware of the landscape patterns that reflect modern labour-saving and intensive farming techniques.

"It is this that inspires me" she said "the rolling fields, the lines of photodegradable plastic laid over the maize seeds,lines of plastic covered bales,the old tyres over silage pits"

She added:"In my work you will see a landscape that reflects its primary use for livestock-yet there is not a cow or sheep in sight"

Silvy plucks hersubject matter out of context and gives it a new aesthetic meaning.Art critic George Melly described her recent work as "where realism meets Op art"

She works in different media- acrylic,oil,pastel or Silverleaf on canvas or board.

She also creates decorative pieces with pheasant feathers-a by-product of her husband's game-dealing business.