150cm x 100cm

Acrylic spray paint and acrylic paint on canvas

Ribbon Detail.

Clan MacIntyre are a Highland clan who I am personally affiliated with as they are some of my ancestors. The Glen Noe line is the chief branch of Clan MacIntyre.

According to tradition, they settled at Glen Noe on Loch Etive in the 13th century after being led by a sacred white cow to fertile land.

The name MacIntyre translates from Gaelic to mean ‘son of the carpenter’, and the clans history has long been associated with myth and legend.

For many centuries they served as hereditary foresters to the Lords of Lorne and later to the Campbell’s of Breadalbane.

They held Glen Noe until 1806, when they were forced to relinquish their lands due to unaffordable rents.

There are rumours of a ‘Black Book of Glen Noe’ which was said to have contained the history of the clan; no documented MacIntyre records have been discovered.

This tartan was originally identified as Hunting MacIntyre in the ‘Vestiarium Scoticum’ by the Sobieski Stewart brothers in 1842.

This painting depicts the woodlands in Glen Noe being felled and logged, from a photograph I took this year. It has a timeless quality to it and shows a central tree as the focal point of the composition, which may have started growing centuries ago when my ancestors were cutting down the trees around it.

This painting is part of the Tartan series.