Samantha Gray Solstice Spiral © the artist

Working together, Orcadian artists Samantha Gray and Gemma McGregor used photographs, maps, drawings, graphic music notation, replicas of Neolithic instruments and sound tracks to create the installation Stenness at Solstice. This event is curated by The Experimental Music Project.

Both artists are interested in investigating Orkney’s Neolithic sites and in considering the people who made and used them. Having decided to create a joint work they visited the Standing Stones of Stenness during winter solstice last December. These art works are based on that joint experience.

The artists collaborated in an organic process, each responding to the others work to create a collage of sounds, images and objects found on their artistic journey.

Dr Gemma McGregor is a composer from Orkney who is interested in depicting consciousness and exploring images of time and place in layers of sound. In addition to writing contemporary choral and instrumental music, she has been part of many interdisciplinary performances and collaborations, has created sound-art and written music for film.

Samantha Gray is a mixed media artist and printmaker from Orkney.  Her main inspiration is the archaeological sites in Orkney.  She is fascinated by these prehistoric sites, the lines they make on the landscape, the natural elements, and the feelings that the sites invoke.  Using line as her main subject, influenced by maps, archaeological site plans and surveys, she is able to express her own lines of connection to the sites. Samantha is keen to explore collaborations with multi-disciplinary professionals and archaeologists.