Touching the Surface

Victoria Crowe’s exhibition Touching the Surface is at the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, from 31 August – 9 November 2024. Crowe made two trips to Orkney as part of her Royal Scottish Academy/Pier Arts Centre Residency award in 2022. She looked specifically at the contrasting light around the summer and winter solstice, the two most extreme periods of the celestial cycle. Her intention was to “explore the light on the land and its margins during the long twilights of the Orkney summer solstice, then return to experience the short days, long darkness and luminous skies of winter”.

Threshold Between Sky and Sea, Known and Unknown

Occluded Sky and Headland, Orkney

Low Winter Sun, Links House Window

Solstice Moon

Brough and Sky Above

Sky Above Brough of Birsay

Birsay Headland

Moon Sequence

Night Reflection, Birsay

Standing Solstice

Shepherds’ Huts, War Bunker and Shining Sea

Midnight Dawn, Birsay

Looking at the contrasting light around the summer and winter solstice, the two most extreme periods of the celestial cycle, Crowe’s intention was to “explore the light on the land and its margins during the long twilights of the Orkney summer solstice, then return to experience the short days, long darkness and luminous skies of winter”.