The Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum is showing a selection of paintings by artist Sheena Wilkie who, though born and grew up in Stirling, now lives in Worthing in the south of England.
Sheena is now a highly respected painter, and a few years ago she began a regular pilgrimage back to the place of her childhood - Stirling. This pilgrimage has been her inspiration to record people, places, and events in paint.

The exhibition includes several works which are a response to her early experiences such as her fear as a child of using the 'Sma' Vennel' as a shortcut and the time her younger sister got her head stuck in the railings of the Holy Trinity Episcopal School, which they both attended.

Sheena, although primarily a figure painter, has included a number of landscape studies. She states that these are 'uncomplicated, immediate responses to the colour and splendour' that she observes in Scotland and that no other place evokes such a 'passionate response.' This is best seen in her depiction of 'The Ochil Hills', a painting about colour which uses expressive paint to capture the landscape and the feeling it gives her.

Many other expressions of identity and a strong sense of place can be found in all her works.
'Unbuckled', the title of the exhibition refers to the saying that Stirling is the buckle which joins the Highlands and Lowlands together. As Sheena says 'Here I have unbuckled to let you look at my memories of a Stirling childhood'.

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