Moy Mackay ready for this year’s Borders Art Fair

Scottish landscape artist and author Moy Mackay is poised to reveal her new collection of work this week.

She will literally pull all her threads together in readiness for her appearance at this year’s Borders Art Fair held at Springwood Park in Kelso from 15–17 March.

As a non-profit organisation, opportunities for public and private funding increased, and the Fair was re-branded and re-launched in 2018, when Frances Fergusson came on board.

Now the Borders Art Fair welcomes over 60 exhibitors, showcasing work from hundreds of artists from the Borders and further afield. It provides a marvellous opportunity to meet the artists, hear about their processes and learn about their work.

The Fair offers an immersive art experience for all ages and abilities. Visitors get a behind-the-scenes insight into the works on display through talking to the exhibitors, watching live demonstrations and taking part in artist-led workshops.

Attendees can look forward to seeing artist Moy’s very latest work – the vibrant, colourful and soulful landscapes for which she is rightly renowned including new fibre art work inspired by her recent tutoring tour of Canada. She will be accompanied by a selection of highly talented exhibiting artists who are all regular visitors to her own Peebles gallery in the town’s busy Northgate.

Moy and her fellow artists will be on Stand 55. And in the Moy Mackay Gallery line-up this year are Amanda Phillips – whose figurative landscapes reflect her rich architectural background; Elizabeth Waugh’s soulful, tactile sculptures built in plaster and cast in bronze and resin; the slightly abstract work of Sally Anne Fitter that is clearly inspired by the structure of flowers, their texture and contrast plus interesting new work by artists Alison Cowan, Jen Collee & Lesley Anne Clarke.

Award-winning artist Moy, who graduated from Glasgow School of Art in the 90s and whose unique work as a fibre artist has achieved international acclaim in the USA, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Spain and in many other European countries as well as on her Scottish home turf, has been a regular exhibitor and staunch supporter of the Borders Art Fair since it was launched.

Last year it attracted more than 5,000 visitors from around the Scottish Borders and further afield with three percent of those visiting travelling more than 30 miles to the event. Meanwhile 150k was spent on art alone.

And artists like Moy are swift to recognise the benefits of this vital role, not just to the artists themselves, but also to the entire Borders community.

Moy said: ‘We can’t thank festival director Frances Fergusson, patrons Hugo Burge, Will Ramsay, Jane Countess of Haddington and their team of helpers enough. I know from first hand experience that the positive impact and wide ranging benefits of this event are felt right across the Borders and are impossible to quantify in figures only.

‘People are proud that the Borders is staging this event and proud to be part of it too. Since the inaugural Fair in 2014 and last year’s revamp, the Borders Art Fair has been a welcome breath of fresh air for many artists and gallery owners working across the Scottish Borders and beyond.

‘It is also becoming increasingly important as a unique and reliable showcase for those of us who continue to find inspiration through living and working in this especially beautiful yet too frequently unsung part of Scotland, and for whom it is essential to promote our work to the wider UK and potentially international market.’

Artists gain immediate access to interested customers and gallery owners while the Borders Art Fair serves the area further by promoting the Scottish Borders’ remarkable creativity in the visual arts world, simultaneously championing it as the perfect destination for the culturally minded tourist – as well as for those families looking for an original fascinating, fun day out.

Full details can be found here www.bordersartfair.com.

As the month of March unfolds there will be no respite for Mackay:

Moy Mackay – Gallery / Forthcoming Exhibition: 11 March – 10 May. Featuring the work of artists: Sonia Barton who brings her colourful and contemporary acrylic paintings of still life, flowers, landscapes and seascapes; Peter Jones will be showing his distinctive townscapes and house portraiture and Rosanne Barr whose bold brushed landscapes are certain to make a lasting impression.

In addition to creating her unique paintings Moy also runs numerous felt painting workshops in her home studio in Peeblesshire and in various countries around the world throughout the year (see www.moymackaygallery.com for dates). Her vibrant, colourful work uses Merino fibres in the same way as a painter uses brushstrokes. She achieves a remarkable depth of warmth and texture that paint could never replicate. Her workshops are suited to all abilities whether complete novices or highly experienced fibre artists looking to develop their work.

For the first time Moy will be exhibiting her work at the Royal Highland Show at Ingliston near Edinburgh from 20–23 June. This is a particularly fitting location for the artist whose presence at the show highlights the invaluable contribution that sheep and indeed the sheep industry make to her art form. This major annual event is attended by hundreds of thousands of people and Moy will be exhibiting her work in person and to answer questions about her highly advanced creative process.

Moy’s third book, The Art of Moy Mackay was published in December 2018 by Search Press in hardback. To date Moy’s other books have sold over 30,000 copies worldwide and have been published in 4 languages. Due to demand from fans of her books Moy has developed a range of Felt Art Kits to accompany this book and previous publications.