Scott McFarlane merges the worlds of dream and reality into the Otago landscape, creating ethereal scenes that have a multiplicity of readings, and a layering of meaning and content. Gathering myths from the past and present, he establishes an emotional tension while juxtaposing contradictory elements of romantic and primitive, menace and beauty.

“McFarlane…locates his landscapes upon the portal of dreams explicitly…His is a comforting, understated landscape, his lightness of touch becoming almost ephemeral.”(1)

“There is a somewhat ‘romantic’ imaginative air to McFarlane’s activities, and a suggestion of dark emotions. He has a liking for an earthly-coloured palette of orches and umbers, or black and white monochrome…. He is at home with both expressionism and the early nineteenth century romantic poets and likes to make works of art from the inspiration of the moment, the fleeting conditions of light or weather that may not last, to contrast the ephemeral with the permanent in the historic landscapes of past generations in this place.” (2)

While Mutch and Burke have focused on the romantic qualities of his work, Richard Dingwall describes the artist as creating “curious and compelling primitive landscapes.” (3) McFarlane paints the Otago coastland, capturing the isolated hills and sea of his home environment. The works layer topography, amplifying the landscape, collapsing time and evoking a sense of history.

McFarlane often depicts scenes in the early dawn or late dusk of the day, employing light as a dramatic device. He begins his paintings out in the field, before completion in the studio. McFarlane portrays natural light, capturing the peculiarities and tonal consequences. As a result, these landscapes have both a sense of immediacy and deliberation while achieving the beauty of an artefact.

McFarlane’s ability to capture history, emotion and the topography of the landscape evidences rare insight into the wairau and memory of place. He is not myth - making but perhaps he is myth – taking. Making us see anew.

1. Nicola Mutch, catalogue for OverView - Is As; Landscape as Metaphor, 2003.
2. Rod Burke, Parallel Bodies, Whangarei Art Museum Catalogue, 2002.
3. Richard Dinwall “Sightings of contemporary art scene,” Otago Daily Times, 2004.