Cultivated Colour, Angie Lewin's forthcoming exhibition at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, brings together over fifty new watercolours celebrating the flowers she grows in her Scottish hillside garden, with the help of a trusty Shetland-designed polytunnel well suited to such an exposed location. Bright, exotic dahlias, parrot tulips, agapanthus and pelargoniums appear in still life compositions alongside her eclectic collection of ceramics and decorative papers, their patterns flowing and mingling with leaves, stems and flowers.
Native wildflowers flourish in the paintings too: snowdrops, vetch, orchids and plantain, growing in the wilder parts of the garden and along the riverbank and woodland tracks beyond. From the pure white of the earliest snowdrops to the deep ultramarine violet of late-summer agapanthus and the glorious dahlias of early autumn, the paintings trace the natural progression of gardening, drawing and painting through the seasons.
Angie describes how garden and studio have gradually grown into one another:
"The relationship between my garden and my studio has intensified, the distance between them narrowing over the years. My garden now has come to be reflected in my work as much as the wildflowers which I encounter daily in the Speyside landscape. At the same time, gradually, as is in the nature of growing things, I've come to realise how significantly my work is now visually echoed in the garden itself. My paintings, each leading to the next in seasonal succession, are changing how I garden these days, how I choose the flowers that I plant around house and studio. As I pore over catalogues of flamboyant tulip and dahlia cultivars it is with paintings in mind.
"Sometimes it is many years before a certain bowl or plate, flower, pebble or feather finds its way into a painting or print but there is a time when the connection is made and I can bring them together. Several years ago, from a favourite antique shop in Norfolk, I bought a stained, chipped bowl labelled 'A Mysterious Bowl c.1850'. How could I resist this! Its elaborate and intriguing decoration was as absorbing to interpret as the infinitely varied dahlia flowers which I picked to place within it."
The house plays its part as well. With autumn arriving early on Speyside, pelargoniums grown indoors have become a new fascination and form a distinct group within the exhibition – among them a pale pink Swedish variety that came by way of the painter Brita Granström and fellow artist Mark Hearld. Friendship runs quietly through the work in this way: cuttings, cups and bowls passed between artists find a place on the studio shelves and, in time, in the compositions themselves, alongside Japanese papers, vintage textiles and the covers of old books.
Christina Jansen, director of The Scottish Gallery, has followed this evolution closely:
"I have had the pleasure and privilege of following Angie's watercolour practice for sixteen years. Her work never stands still. With each exhibition there has been development and experimentation, and Cultivated Colour is another exceptional leap forward. There is an extraordinary confidence in these new paintings, coupled with an increasing willingness to take risks.
"Running through Angie's practice is colour: lyrical, instinctive, sometimes audacious and increasingly free. Angie Lewin is, above all, a colourist. Her colour is cultivated, experienced and lived."
Cultivated Colour is at The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, from 1–24 October 2026.
Explore our range of paper goods by Angie Lewin.
Photography by Julie Howden.
