Dugald MacInnes

Statement

• The change, in prehistoric times, from a nomadic lifestyle to that of fixed settlement would have been a gradual one for the people who lived in what we now known as Scotland.
• With the development of permanent communities and agricultural practices, ritual burial evolved in the form of chambered tombs, often constructed partly form large stones. Other such megaliths were used to create circles and linear alignments. What these arrangements signify is not clear. It is highly likely that they were used in religious ritual, although some archeologists maintain that they were used as astronomical calendars, waymarkers, or symbols of power.
• In my 'First Farmers' work, I have used the notion that standing stones were related to stellar and planetary phenomenon as a method of keeping records, of coming to terms with the natural world and of predicting important events.

Prehistoric Cup and Ring Marks

• These enigmatic marks are to be found in many parts of Scotland where they have been carved into rock surfaces.
  Their significance still eludes us, but a number of explanations have been put forward including astronomical and sexual symbolism, symbols of power, and marks of identity.
• A variety of shapes are recorded including cups without rings, grids, rectangles and spirals. These may have been made by the first inhabitants of what we now call Scotland. With the retreat of the ice-sheet some 9000 years ago, small groups of people roamed the newly exposed land living in temporary encampments. It is estimated these hunter-gatherers numbered less than 300 souls in total.
• My 'Hunter-Gatherer' work is a synthesis of geological/topological form and archaeological imagery. It attempts to suggest the heightened spiritual awareness perhaps felt by those first hunters as they migrated across unexplored country, living 'close to the edge'.

Methods

• Slate from various localities in Scotland is principally used in the creation of the mosaics. This work leans heavily on elements extracted from geological and archaeological contexts. Combined with sandstone, limestone and smalti, the slate is manipulated in a variety of forms depending on its characteristics. In some pieces the stone is cut with a diamond saw or is cored, in others with geology hammers and nippers and often with a mixture of all techniques.
• Weathered slate from former quarries on the western seaboard of Scotland is particularly favored because of the exquisite colors resulting from weathering of iron particles by salt water. Here, several cleavage planes allow the stone to be broken into small, easily worked pieces. In other quarry sites the material is hard with a steel-like sheen and is best used for large shapes.
• The slate, smalti, etc. is fixed to plywood board using a proprietary tile adhesive, but mixed with black poster color. This gives the interstices a low-key gray that is in sympathy with the stone.
• The combination of artist, geologist and archaeologist is perhaps unusual, but it has provided a strong foundation for the artwork. From the geology comes a knowledge of the colors, patterns and textures that result from faulting, folding, weathering and other processes in the earth's crust.
• The archaeology has given an insight into the history of human intervention in the landscape. In particular, the standing stones, or megaliths, of Scotland and elsewhere in Western Europe have provided a wealth of ideas for the mosaics. The suggestion that alignments between megaliths and the sun, moon and planets formed a crude calendar in Prehistoric times is particularly interesting to me. This forms the theme around which my recent work has evolved.