Scottish Thought and the Art of Perception

There is a thread that runs through Scottish history related to how we understand the world and about how we perceive reality.

For centuries, Scottish thinkers, scientists, and philosophers have asked fundamental questions, such as: What is light? What is colour? What is reality? And perhaps most intriguingly—what does it mean to really see?

The aim of this piece is to explore these questions in relation to art.

Take James Clerk Maxwell, for example. His work on light and colour did much to advance physics by revealing something profound about perception. By demonstrating that all colours could be created from combinations of red, green, and blue light (RGB), he uncovered a hidden structure beneath what we experience visually. His first colour photograph, modest as it may seem, marked a turning point for both science and art. It reshaped how colour could be captured, reproduced, and ultimately understood.

In my own work, I often find myself thinking about this unseen structure—how colour and light are visual elements that can carry the meaning behind the piece. In Transmission, for example, light is illumination that becomes a conduit, or a connection between the physical and something spiritual beyond. The soul figure is linked to a larger system or realm that cannot be seen fully.

In a different but related way, David Brewster’s invention of the kaleidoscope offered a glimpse into the beauty of symmetry and fragmentation. A simple device of mirrors and coloured fragments became a window into a variation of patterns that feel ordered and dreamlike. It is not difficult to see the influence of this in the way forms can be broken apart and reassembled within a painting, suggesting that multiple layers of reality can exist simultaneously.

This sense of fragmentation and reconfiguration has found its way into my Utopian Dream series, where landscapes and figures exist in a kind of suspended state that is imagined, but at the same time strangely familiar. These works are about constructing a space where perception becomes somewhat uncertain, fluid, and open to interpretation.

But perhaps the most profound contribution lies in thought. David Hume challenged the very notion of objective reality, suggesting that what we perceive is the world as we experience it, and not necessarily what is actually there. Thus, reality, in this sense, becomes something constructed that is filtered through our memories, sensations, and belief sytems.

For an artist, this idea can be quite transformative.

It raises questions that sit at the heart of an artist’s creative practice: Is a painting a reflection of reality, or an interpretation of it? And if all perception is subjective, might not a dream, a symbol, or a vision carry as much truth as what we see with our own eyes?

This core question is poignant for me as it sits at the centre of much of my work. I am not necessarily trying to recreate the visible world exactly as it appears, but exploring what lies beneath it, as in the emotional, psychological, and perhaps even the spiritual dimensions of human experience. In paintings such as Transmission and the Utopian Dream series, the figures that often appear present are also elsewhere. They are grounded, but also connected to something spiritual beyond the immediate scene.

This way of thinking emerged during the Scottish Enlightenment, a period centred largely in Edinburgh, where questioning how we observe the human experience became a guiding tenet that encouraged a shift towards a deeper understanding of it. Artists, knowingly or not, have been part of that lineage ever since.

Even the land itself was reimagined through Scottish thought. James Hutton’s work in geology revealed a world far older than what was previously believed. Suddenly, the earth was no longer static. It had a long and deep dark ancient history. This resonates with the way I approach the space and environment in my paintings, as something that is living in a layered multi-dimensional realm.

What emerges from all of this is a shared spirit. A way of looking beneath the surface by questioning the obvious, and by recognising that what we see in this physical plane is only a small and narrow part of the story.

As a painter, I find myself drawn to that space between the visible and the spiritual. Therefore, my work is not so much concerned with depicting reality as it appears, but more about exploring the structures that exist at the foundation level.

In that sense, I feel a certain kinship with those curious earlier thinkers, because I believe we share the same curiosity.

To see not just what we perceive is there... but to discover what might exist elsewhere.