Interview
Irene Watson
For over three decades, Irene Watson has worked at the intersection of social practice, education, and contemporary art, engaging some of the most vulnerable communities in collaborative projects that give voice to lived experience. Alongside this socially engaged practice, Watson has sustained a committed studio practice rooted in painting, performance, and cross-disciplinary exploration. Working primarily in oil on canvas or linen, their studio work is marked by an allegorical sensibility that reflects on environmental fragility and human vulnerability. Recent series have taken the “Pond” as a central metaphor, a contained yet expansive world through which questions of ecological balance, discord, and resilience are explored. Formal contrasts — figure and field, mark and landscape, harmony and dissonance — provide the structural underpinning for these investigations, inviting viewers to engage both visually and conceptually.
Trained in the 1980s, Watson draws on a lineage of modernist painters from Cézanne to Franz Kline, while acknowledging the influence of pioneering female artists such as Eva Hesse and Agnes Martin, whose work shaped new modes of expression within modernist traditions. The integration of text and image by artists including Jenny Holzer and Tracey Emin has also informed their approach, underscoring a commitment to moving beyond pure formalism into a space where colour, gesture, and material resonance carry social and political weight. Each body of work emerges from research yet embraces the play and unpredictability of process. Paint is allowed to flow, surfaces are built up through gesture, and meaning arises from the dialogue between intention and materiality. The resulting works invite audiences to enter through their aesthetic immediacy and remain to consider deeper connections with landscape, fragility, and emotional resonance.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I trained at Duncan of Jordanston college of Art, Dundee in the 80s in Painting and then I studied an M.Phil in Public Art and Design. I have worked for over three decades, at the intersection of social practice, education, and contemporary art, engaging some of the most vulnerable communities in collaborative projects that give voice to lived experience. Alongside this socially engaged practice, I have sustained a committed studio practice rooted in painting, performance, and cross-disciplinary exploration.”
What inspires you?
“Working primarily in oil on canvas or linen, my studio work is marked by an allegorical sensibility that reflects on environmental fragility and human vulnerability. Recent series have taken the ‘Pond’ as a central metaphor, a contained yet expansive world through which questions of ecological balance, discord, and resilience are explored. Formal contrasts — figure and field, mark and landscape, harmony and dissonance — provide the structural underpinning for these investigations, inviting viewers to engage both visually and conceptually.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“Each body of work emerges from research yet embraces the play and unpredictability of process. Paint is allowed to flow, surfaces are built up through gesture, and meaning arises from the dialogue between intention and materiality. The resulting works invite audiences to enter through their aesthetic immediacy and remain to consider deeper connections with landscape, fragility, and emotional resonance.”
How would you describe your work?
“In the studio, I work mostly with oils on canvas or linen. My paintings often carry an allegorical quality, reflecting on the fragility of the environment and the ways we balance (and sometimes fail to balance) with the world around us. Recently, I’ve been exploring the ‘Pond’ as a metaphor — a small, contained world that speaks to bigger questions about harmony, discord, resilience, and care. I love contrasts: figure against field, mark against landscape, moments of balance alongside imbalance. For me, these relationships echo the push and pull of life, and I want viewers to feel both the beauty and tension in that space. I usually work in series, beginning with a researched idea but always leaving space for play and surprise. Paint has its own life — it flows, resists, and leaves traces — and I try to let that material energy shape the work. At its core, my practice is about connection: drawing people in through the visual language of colour and form, and opening space for reflection on fragility, landscape, and emotional resonance.”
Which artists influence you most?
“My influences stretch from modernist painters like Cézanne and Franz Kline to artists such as Eva Hesse, Agnes Martin, Jenny Holzer, and Tracey Emin — all of whom expanded the language of painting, text, and form in ways that continue to inspire me.”
“My paintings often carry an allegorical quality, reflecting on the fragility of the environment and the ways we balance (and sometimes fail to balance) with the world around us.”
What is your creative process like?
“I usually work in series, beginning with a researched idea but always leaving space for play and surprise. Paint has its own life — it flows, resists, and leaves traces — and I try to let that material energy shape the work.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“An artists role is to give voice to the hidden and the unseen- the unnoticed in the world.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“I have spent a lifetime working in partnership and often been seen as an arts activist, working behind the scenes to push other’s voices forward. I have worked with the Scottish Government and NGOs in partnership, in Scotland to deliver young people’s multi media arts projects, which in turn informs research at a political level. My work has been selected for the Royal Academy, Royal Scottish Academy, and I have had solo shows at the Crawford Art Centre St. Andrews, Meffan Institute, Greg Flint, Auckland, Drawing Room Auckland. I have also worked in partnership with LINLEY to deliver an exhibition in Pimlico.”
Instagram: @irene_watson_
