The paintings of Barbara Mackie acknowledge the colours of nature and she likes to focus on the characteristics and features of the land, with a little abstraction. Ancient woodland and specimen trees are a key inspiration within a particular season. She concurs with the late Roger Deakin, writer and environmentalist, that the places and landscapes we spend time in, live on in us wherever we may be, and however far from them. Her memories through such experiences, prevail and re-emerge in the birth of new work. Barbara paints in oil, acrylic and watercolour. She sustains her draughtsmanship through studies of both natural and built form. She is based in the south-east Scotland, in the Lothian and Borders area, a locality of rivers and mountains and coastline, farmland and forests and has travelled abroad in recent years to Sicily and Canada.