Charity McArdle

Charity McArdle trained in London in the early 90s but lost touch with making her own work in the melee of starting a career in teaching, raising a family and moving to Scotland. She rediscovered her practice in 2015 when she decided to have a year of ‘making rubbish’ and focusing on ‘quantity, not quality’. This led to NHS portraits for heroes, the coyly provocative ‘Caledonian Buddha’ and a range of land and seascapes.
Her current work presents sweeping, sumptuously painted suggested landscapes, brooding skies and waiting bodies of waters which invite the viewer to contemplation. Elements of infrastructure and industry creep in, lightly but resolutely present. Her work has a contained tension which belies the sumptuous nature of these oil paintings. There is a brooding anticipation within much of her work and this is echoed in the dissonance between elements of her visual language. Does the landscape protect or threaten? Do the clouds offer hope or impending turmoil? Does the surface texture invite or repel?
The relationship of colour and gesture to the human experience and how this can connect at a deeper, spiritual level is also prominent in Charity’s work.