Janet Boulton Paintings & paper relief works, Recent Texts

Some journeys of artistic exploration leave no mark, but the journey that Janet Boulton made in exploring the gardens, the imagery and the mind of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Scotland's undoubted masterpiece of landscape, set in the Pentland Hills could have been monumentally disastrous for both of them.

Like Ian Hamilton Finlay, Boulton the watercolour artist is also a serious gardener. Trained at the Camberwell School of Art her main preoccupation is still life, but in 1981 she began to make pictures of gardens as an extension of her interest in the practice and history of gardens eventually concentrating on the neo-classical gardens of Villa la Pietra, Florence and Little Sparta in Scotland.

Boulton smiles as she refers to Finlay's reference to her as "the sometimes resident artist at Little Sparta". "I was", as she says, "an observer of Ian's work, rarely a collaborator: the only painter ever to have stayed there. This privilege has had a most profound effect on my life, not only as an artist, but also as a gardener."

It was as resident artist at ECA in 2006 that she began work on a new series of watercolours and paper reliefs of her many sketches made at Little Sparta over a period of 14 years. This work led to this exhibition, sympathetically presented between the pillars of the refurbished neo-classical Sculpture Court as part of ECA's festival programme.

Boulton's watercolour paintings, sculptured motifs and reliefs are shown along with a wealth of Finlay memorabillia - toys, wooden fish, small painted boats. Boulton in a delightfully playful geture incorporates them in her still life interiors. Inspired by the Temple to Apollo at Little Sparta a brace of watering cans appears nonchalantly in "Aphrodite with Beehive". It is this refreshing down-to-earth practicality which, married to keen perception of delicacy of colour, place and space, gives her work edge and veracity.

The photographs of her own garden at Spring Road are a testament to her empathy with Finlay. Has he influenced her work? "No, but he has influenced my garden". Boulton the artist/gardener is a rare spirit. Remembering Little Sparta is a unique commentary on a fourteen year artistic journey where landscape and art reach a harmonious conclusion.

Michael Wood, who was instrumental in first recognising the merit of Boulton's work in relation to one of Scotland's leading artistic figures, welcomed over 200 guests to the exhibition which was formally opened by the President of the Little Sparta Trust, Magnus Linklater. The John David Mooney Foundation is keen to host the exhibition in Chicago in 2010.