The Way I See It – Katherine Sutherland (Highland Art Prize 2025 winner)

This exhibition brings together a collection of paintings inspired by the places, objects and moments that capture my attention.

From the ever changing Scottish landscape to quiet interiors and intimate still lifes, each work is a personal response to what I observe and remember.

Working across a range of painting media, I use colour as my primary means of expression. Influenced by the modernist tradition of allowing colour to express form, I am less interested in recording a place exactly as it appears than in capturing its essence and sense of place through layers of paint, texture and mark-making.

The Way I See It is an invitation to step into my world and to experience familiar subjects through a different lens, where colour shapes memory, light transforms place, and the everyday becomes extraordinary.

Based in the Scottish Highlands, my work explores the deep connection between land, light, and emotion. Through layers of colour, texture, and form, I seek to capture the shifting moods and rhythms of this landscape – its wild energy and quiet stillness.

Working mainly in oils and mixed media, I respond intuitively to place, allowing each piece to evolve through gesture and colour rather than strict representation. My inspiration comes from direct experience of the land and from artists such as Joan Eardley, Bonnard, Vuillard, The Scottish Colourists, whose work celebrates both expression and structure.

In 2025, I was honoured to receive the Highland Art Prize for my painting Sentinel of the Northwest, recognised for its sense of scale, warmth, and layered depth. This award reinforces my belief that landscape art can still speak powerfully to our shared sense of place and belonging.

Katherine Sutherland is an award-winning contemporary Scottish artist based in the Highlands. Working across oil, watercolour, collage and mixed media, she uses colour as her primary means of expression, creating expressive landscapes, interiors, figures, florals and still life paintings that capture atmosphere, memory and emotional resonance.

Inspired by the Scottish Colourists and artists including Matisse, Anne Redpath, Bonnard and Vuillard, her work balances observation with intuition, transforming everyday subjects and the Scottish landscape into bold, layered compositions rich in colour and feeling.

In 2025, Katherine received the Highland Art Prize for Sentinel of the Northwest. Her work has been exhibited widely across Scotland, including the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour Annual Exhibition, and is held in private collections throughout the UK.