Catriona Gallagher joined VARC’s ENTWINED: Rural. Land. Lives. Art. programme in July 2020, spending ten months living and working at Highgreen. Her residency took place during a period marked by pandemic restrictions, shaping both the rhythm of her practice and her engagement with the surrounding Northumberland landscape. The work resulting from this residency is documented in an illustrated booklet featuring an essay by Lesley Guy.
Catriona’s multidisciplinary practice spans drawing, writing, moving image, and installation, united by an interest in the subtle traces—both physical and psychological—that reveal our relationship with place. Her work often makes the familiar strange, observing the overlooked details of everyday environments and their echoes in human perception. Plants, from wild weeds to cultivated herbs, recur as symbolic figures, embodying histories of human interaction, knowledge, and control. Through such motifs, Catriona explores the intersection between the natural and the manmade, revealing how each shape and mirrors the other.
During her time at Highgreen, Catriona turned her attention to forestry plantations as expressions of the ‘artificial natural.’ Having previously worked in urban environments, she approached Northumberland’s landscapes with an eye to how human design is embedded within what is often perceived as wilderness. Her research explored ideas of control, dominance, and coexistence within ecological and social systems, questioning what it means to label a place as ‘wild’ or ‘natural.’
Engaging closely with the local environment and community, Catriona examined how practical knowledge of the land—such as local terminology, navigation skills, and seasonal lore—is held collectively and passed through lived experience. Conversations with local residents became part of her process, forming the basis for filmic portraits and field recordings made during socially distanced walks. This growing archive of footage reflects on biodiversity, land use, and the complex dynamics of forestry and agriculture in the region.
Catriona’s visual work from the residency includes aerial drawings and sculptural models of forestry plantations, exploring their geometric, almost digital appearance within the landscape. By translating between physical and digital forms—maps, models, and moving images—she investigates how human perception constructs and abstracts nature.
Her residency culminated in preparations for a film and mixed-media installation, presented as part of the ENTWINED exhibition, reflecting her deep inquiry into the paradoxes of landscape, control, and coexistence in rural Northumberland.
