Fine art students at UHI Shetland open their studio to the public

Four BA (Hons) Fine Art students from UHI Shetland are inviting the public to experience their creative process during a special Open Studio event at the Lerwick campus in Gremista. Running from Tuesday 2 to 4 April, the exhibition showcases their work and highlights their creative practices through UHI Shetland.

As part of their BA (Hons) Fine Art programme, the students are undertaking Professional Practice Modules in their 2nd and 3rd years, requiring them to stage a ‘Live Project’. The Open Studio serves as a culmination of their studies and offers an exclusive look at their artistic development. Visitors can expect to see a diverse range of works, including painting, printmaking, sculpture, and mixed media pieces, all inspired by deeply personal themes, environmental concerns, and Shetland’s unique landscape.

The students’ work is as varied as their inspirations. One artist’s work reflects Shetland’s shifting moods and light, capturing its landscapes through a contemporary and experimental lens. Another explores the nature of memory, time, and nostalgia, using colour and light to evoke warmth and familiarity. A third artist’s practice is rooted in sustainability, transforming waste materials into sculptural pieces that question the future of our planet. The final student takes inspiration from personal dreams and subconscious anxieties, blending pastels, acrylics, ink, and charcoal into expressive mixed media works that explore the passage of time and personal reflection.

This Open Studio event provides a unique opportunity for the public to engage with emerging artists and witness the creative journey behind their work. Visitors are encouraged to explore the studio space, interact with the artists, and gain insight into their inspirations and techniques.

Tayla Hanks one of the fine art Students said “We hope lots of folk can come along to the campus in Gremista to see what we have been working on in our studios this semester.”

Event schedule:

• Wednesday 2 April, 6:30pm to 8pm: Open night (drinks and nibbles provided)
• Thursday 3 April, 10am to 5pm: Open Studio
• Friday 4 April, 10am to 5pm: Open Studio

About the artists:

Susan Linklater

Susan is inspired by Shetland’s landscape. Being outside running, walking, and working is part of her everyday life and is what mostly informs her art. She draws from her experience of living in the sometimes harsh Shetland environment when painting and printmaking. She explores the different and everchanging moods, light and colours of the Shetland weather.  Susan’s work is seasonal responding to growth, colour and decay in her garden, observing the migrating birds and capturing the power of winter storms in her seascapes. Susan’s work is not purely representational but rather contemporary and experimental and gives an essence of a moment in time and space.

Tayla Hanks

This semester Tayla’s practice has been centred around a recent dream. Tayla has analysed the personal symbolism in this dream, discovering the dream was formed from anxieties regarding passing time, in her studies and personal life. This analysis has inspired her creative practice. Tayla works in a mixture of mediums, primarily acrylic paint, pastels, charcoal and ink, often mixing these mediums together to create mixed media pieces.

Tabitha Johnson

Tabitha creates sculptural pieces inspired by the decay of the living world. By using a variety of techniques, she utilises waste materials as a part of her practice. This exhibition adds to a growing range of organisms and environments that are real and unreal, providing people the opportunity to question earth sustainability. 

Estella Smith

Concepts of memory and time and finding beauty in the everyday are the core interests in Estella’s work.  To create a sense of place through her work, she focuses on depictions of domesticity and nostalgia.  Through the use of colour and light, Estella aims to create a warm homely atmosphere in her paintings that encapsulates the feelings and emotions of life being associated with others.