When the evening mist surrounds us

In 2001, Wylie received a prestigious commission from The Council of the Gaelic to contribute to, An Leabhar Mor (The Great Book of Gaelic, now widely referred to as ‘The Contemporary Book of Kells’). The accompanying exhibition opened at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, and has toured to venues throughout Europe and America, including the Smithsonian Institute, Washington Mall, USA (June-July 2003).

This output comprises one portrait, which was initially inspired by text: a poem on longing and lost love, written by Murdo Morrison. Wylie then explored how artists, working in various media and across time, had engaged with these emotions, and was especially struck by landscape paintings by Piero della Francesca and photographic landscapes by American social realist Ben Shahn. Drawing upon his long-established connections with the boat-making community of North Uist, Wylie returned to the Western Isles. The portrait is of a girl member of the Stewart family.

In order to evoke his own interpretation of lost love, for a single other or a community and landscape in flux, Wylie created a technique which created a softness and afterglow. A girl from the Stewart family formed his subject: the image was taken at twilight on the island of Grimsay.