Three artists from Dumfries are bringing their work to the Dundas Gallery from 17 September in a new exhibition called Stone, Bone and Linen.
The unusual title reflects their separate fields of expertise – and the exhibition is an expression of their friendship as well as their art.
Minette Bell Macdonald, Mishi Bellamy and Silvy Weatherall are all individual artists who are combining their art in a city exhibition. They plan to be at the gallery every day to show and discuss their work.
Stone – Minette Bell Macdonald works with Paleolithic themes and captures the essence of cave paintings which she has visited in France to explore the origins of the human race and the way that the cavemen communicated using the art painted or etched on their cave walls. She graduated from Carlisle College of Art and has exhibited in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bath and Boston. Minette paints the landscape in Dumfries and Galloway where she lives, working in chalk on paper or board – or alternatively uses acrylics, trying hard to capture the weather and the atmosphere without spoiling the solitude of the places she sees and paints. She paints from memory and the work included in the Edinburgh exhibition will be a “new look” for her. Usually she exhibits her work at The Art Hut at Hartwood Farm near Lockerbie. She said she wants to “remind people of their origins”.
Bone – Silvy Weatherall works with discarded or broken items which she brings to life with reuse in an art form. Her current series uses bone china and this new work will be on display alongside larger sculptures. Silvy “hates waste” and uses all manner of objects which would be otherwise discarded and finds the beauty in them. She says she has a love of pattern and this runs through her work. She has lived in Dumfries since 1998 although travelled in Australia and Hong Kong before that. She is a graduate of Camberell School of Arts and Crafts, and undertook a residency at St Mary’s Episcopal Church in 2021 creating a series of observational drawings of The Last Supper installed on the high altar of the cathedral. She has exhibited previously upstairs at the Fine Art Society. https://www.silvart.co.uk
Linen – Mishi Bellamy works with textiles influenced by her life with her late husband David in Jaipur in India and in France before settling in the south west of Scotland. She paints in her studio at home at large scale on linen using oil paints and the all new work in this exhibition will be colourful and bold with beautiful, charismatic figures, and symbolism in bold patterns and colours.
Stone Bone and Linen at Dundas Gallery from 17 to 29 September 2025.
