The artwork is also ‘grown locally’ at Inverness Botanic Gardens

It’s not just the plants and vegetables being grown locally at the Inverness Botanic Gardens & Café – an art exhibition with a difference has just arrived, with all the materials used to create the works having been found in nature, either local to the venue or to the artists’ home.

Nigel Goldie is a sculptor living in Assynt on the west coast of Scotland and his unique exhibition at the popular Inverness Botanic Gardens brings to life both wild and tamed elements from the natural world.

Titled ‘Out of the Ground’ and on show until the end of September, Nigel’s sculptures are made from materials sourced from the Botanic Gardens and from land around the coast of Assynt. Ranging in shapes and sizes, this innovative exhibition is visually surprising and offers unusual ways of looking at how sculptural ways of creating can challenge assumptions about nature as well as social relationships, expressed in abstract forms.

As well as sculptures dotted around the Gardens, additional – more fragile pieces – can be viewed inside one of the venue’s glasshouses until the 17 September.

Nigel Goldie commented: “One of the distinctive features of the sculptures in the glasshouse is that they are not only made with materials from nature, but also the construction method has relied on pinning the elements together by a doweling technique without additional glueing or other means of holding them together.

"This means they are fragile but also unusual and unique forms are thereby created."

This is the first time that Nigel Goldie has displayed his works in the Inverness Botanic Gardens – a fitting venue for an exhibition with nature at its heart.

About the artist:

Nigel Goldie developed his interest in sculpture after a varied working life within academia, local government and social research and consultancy – with considerable experience of marginal and excluded social groups.

This provides a backdrop to his sculptural interests that also focus on how abstract forms of expression can explore the big issues of power and dominance, exclusion and conflict as well as cohesion and harmony.

Since moving to Assynt in 2012 his engagement with sculpture has often suffered from the demands of also becoming involved in community organisations and projects. This show reflects his concern to address this imbalance and he is grateful to the Inverness Botanic Gardens to enable this happen.

He has worked with a wide range of materials commonly used for sculpture and also found and unusual waste products such as packaging and other plastics including a major show in Lochinver ( Out of the Depths in 2016) using detritus from the fishing industry alongside kelp and other natural material, also shown at the Isle Martin Seaweed Festival in 2021.

His work has been shown locally at arts events and festivals in Ullapool and Lochinver and other locations.

For more information visit Nigel’s website: Out of the Ground – Sculpture Show at Inverness Botanical Gardens – Nigel Goldie

Press release issued by High Life Highland.