McLaughlin’s practice combines personal experience with compositional and sustainable devices, such as sewing remnant materials, to create non-traditional landscape paintings. Mountain Pass (Lairig Ghru) evolved from sketches of Ben MacDui in the Cairngorms, following a walk from Nan Shepherd’s book The Living Mountain, 1977. Through the sensory experience of walking, translated into the physicality of large-scale painting, McLaughlin processes ideas of place, memory, identity and ecology.

“Just as layers of paint highlight underlying rhythms and textures of the sewn fabrics, I’m interested in painting as a way of highlighting overlooked aspects of our landscapes. This is also reflected in my use of colour. Whilst walking, I sketch and gather a particular spectrum of colours for my paintings, affected by light, weather and time. I’m not aiming to create romanticised depictions of Scottish landscape, but instead want to highlight the unusual colourings of the land. The painting elevates each colour: a speck of heather becomes a bulbous form of unusual purple, the pale gray-green of dry lichen moves across the composition or the deep blues of arctic-alpine flora become heavy, grounding the painting. By using a colour palette that shifts with weather and time, I’m translating a more sustained experience with the landscape, slowly looking, in contrast with the fast paced nature of mainstream society.”