A Glimpse Into Janette Sumner’s Maritime World | The Sunday Journal - No.2
There’s something about meeting an artist that shifts how you see the work. Janette Sumner dropped off two new paintings recently - Foraging the Shore and Flying above the Tideline.
These new arrivals joined Whispering Seagrass and Honeycomb Tide, a punchy green and yellow pairing that demands attention.
The colours of Whispering Seagrass and Honeycomb Tide come directly from Belhaven Bay in East Lothian. Janette talked about watching marine algae in the rock pools-how the tiny fronds move under the surface-and the vivid green of the seagrass. It’s very specific, very observed, not your average “coastal” palette, but something grounded in a particular place
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What’s interesting is how that observation carries through into the materials. These aren’t just painted surfaces. She builds them up using collage-papers she’s made herself with inks and mulberry tissue, sometimes embedded with dried seaweed.
In Foraging the Shore and Flying above the Tideline, there are also more unexpected elements worked in: copies of lighthouse-keepers’ surveys from the Scottish Ornithologists' Club archives, fragments of old Admiralty sea charts and even vintage seabird stamps.
It gives the work a slightly archival quality - like pieces of discovered information gathered over time and reassembled. Not in a heavy way, but enough to root the paintings in something real and researched, as well as observed.
This collaboration with organisations such as the Scottish Ornithologists' Club, adds another layer to it. There’s a genuine connection to the landscapes she’s working from, not just visually, but through shared knowledge and material.
Foraging the Shore has already sold (through the Own Art scheme, which continues to be a great way for people to spread the cost of buying work), and Flying above the Tideline is currently on show in the gallery.
Click here to view and purchase any of Janette's available works.
Next week, I’m visiting Joyce Gunn Cairns’ studio to understand how she works and where her inspiration comes from.
Until next Sunday, Adam