
Textures of Land and Sea
13 Dec, 2025 - 14 Dec, 2025
Free
Exhibition open 11am-5pm
Born in Zambia, raised there and in Northumberland, artist Ruth Bond trained in fashion and built an award-winning interior designer business in Newcastle. Having worked and travelled in many countries across the globe, absorbing cultures, colours and the beauty of the natural world, she now works happily painting in oils, always from experience of the countryside she loves – the Northumbrian coast, Scotland, Canada, Italy and the very special Outer Hebrides.
Ruth’s instinctive response to the rich colours in the Hebrides, in the landscapes and echoed in the traditional island tweeds, produced a profound effect on her work. Each painting in this collection is based on a particular Harris Tweed swatch, the starting point limiting the paint pallet mixed from just these colours. As a result, her landscapes resemble not just the purple, peaty rivers, vibrant turquoise of the seas, blindingly white beaches, and heathery moors but also the originally natural ingredients that went into dying the yarns. Her joy in being there as often as she can, expressed in her paintings, has made her work much loved and sought after. Her paintings are now collected world-wide. A catalogue book accompanies this exhibition “Outer Hebrides Captured” available to purchase as a souvenir of the exhibition and, of course, the Outer Hebrides.