I graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in 2019 in Fine Art.

Over the last few years I have enjoyed travelling to the north west coast and the Outer Hebrides including Lewis and Harris. I find the landscape of Assynt particularly inspiring and spent time this summer drawing and painting around Culkein Bay. A few years ago we stayed near Achiltiebuie and I discovered the large rusty buoys on the beach at Polbain. When I returned home I decided to create a tryptich of etchings of the rusty buoys on the shoreline looking towards the Summer Isles.

My work often revolves around time-based projects where natural elements are used actively as tools in this process creating marks which are traces and evidence of the passage of time.

 My Degree Show was called ‘The Land and the Sea.’

The Sea related to the etching of the rusty buoys on the shore at Achiltiebuie. I took my etching and parcelled it up with bits of rust tied with string attaching it at low tide to a metal ring on the shoreline here in Pittenweem and then exposed it to the ebb and flow of the tide. I like to think that the sea connects people rather than separates them. Several prints were lost to the waves but one survived. This piece carries traces of it’s time under the waves. For my degree show I created the soundtrack for a film which layered images and sound together reflecting the rhythm of the waves. The film was projected onto one of the surviving sea washed etchings.

I am currently ‘Artist in Residence’ for the Manx Beauty project. This is a community initiative to restore a fishing boat the ‘Manx Beauty’ which was built in Cellardyke at the beginning of the last century. I am working with similar concepts within the context of the Manx Beauty.

Kirstie Behrens

In 2019 I graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone Collage of Art and Design B.A. hons Fine Art.

I live and work in Pittenweem, Fife and have been working in printmaking since 2011, producing most of my work at the DCA in Dundee.

My work has been exhibited at:

Royal Scottish Academy

Aberdeen Artists

Royal Glasgow Institute

Visual Arts Scotland, Edinburgh

Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries

Edinburgh School of Drawing

The Braemar Gallery

Rosangle Art Gallery, Dundee as part of

‘Impact 8’ International Printmaking Conference

Edinburgh Art Fair

Gallery 13, Newport, Fife

Awards

2014 RSA Art in Healthcare Award

2019 Angus Alive Graduate Exhibition Award

2021 Roy Wood Prize for Printmaking RSA

2021 RSA Art in Healthcare Award

2021 W Gordon Smith and JayGordonsmith Award RSA

 email: kbehrens1@btinternet.com

website: www.kirstiebehrens.co.uk