Oil on cradled panel

23 x 30 cm

It is easy to see only the romantic beauty of the Highlands. The soul of the landscape feels ageless, but it is the skin that changes—the fragile layer between the natural elements and the external.

There are fewer trees now than there once were, which led me to reflect on what used to be, compared to what exists today.

While traveling across the Highlands, I have been contemplating commercial forestry systems, monocultures, woodlands, and biodiversity. We may perceive the natural world, but embedded within it is a web of industry and extraction, and we can only hope for renewal.