Abstract landscape artist Kerry Souter continues her reflections on her career, motivations and advice for emerging artists in Part Two of our exclusive interview with her ahead of her brand new solo show 'A Kiss of the Sea'.
Summary
In this video, Kerry Souter continues discussing her artistic journey, elaborating on her intuitive painting process influenced by American artist Nicholas Wilton's teachings. She describes how painting puts her in a meditative "flow state" where she loses awareness of her surroundings—a feeling that parallels her experience of solitude at the beach.
Kerry explains her deep connection to coastlines, which stems from her childhood on Scotland's east coast where her father's career in the merchant navy created an emotional link between the sea and family. Now living on Scotland's west coast, she finds inspiration in empty beaches, particularly during inclement weather when the solitude allows her to hear and observe more clearly.
Since becoming a professional painter, Kerry's output has increased significantly—producing approximately 50 paintings annually. She describes how each group of paintings serves as a starting point for the next, creating an "ever-ending response" as she continues to develop her style. Despite occasional struggles with "imposter syndrome," recognition from galleries and peers has helped build her confidence as a professional artist.
For Kerry, painting has become essential to her well-being—fulfilling a childhood dream of painting all day that once seemed impossible. She values not only the personal satisfaction of creating art but also its ability to bring beauty into people's lives during difficult times, helping them "feel something, feel alive and happy" amid real-world challenges.
TRANSCRIPT
The other thing that Nicholas Wilton taught me in some of his free courses was just the joy and the experimentation and just being free to try things. I think my process, my way of painting is very intuitive rather than following more traditional techniques.
Part of me always felt that that wasn't really an acceptable way of painting, but I've discovered through Nicholas Wilton's course and various other online courses that it's actually becoming a growing movement of painting and it really appeals to me. I find it really meditative and when you're in that state—the flow state—when you're not aware of your surroundings or anything else and you're just working with the paint, your mind is empty and it's just a fantastic feeling.
Sometimes I might have had a great time in the studio all afternoon thinking I'm doing some fantastic work here, and sometimes at the end of it all I stand back and it's a load of rubbish. But it's okay even on those days where the finished work for that day might not have produced anything wonderful in that particular session. It's still another stage—it's going to move on from there. But what it has done when I'm in that state of painting is lifted my mood.
I see it as a really important part in my life and I think my passion for art and just being creative in general has always been there as far as I can remember. My earliest memories were painting in the school classroom in primary one and being called over, not wanting to leave the easel. I've just always been happy making art in whatever form, not necessarily painting but creating in some way or another. It's always been there.
For a long time after art school it wasn't there. I mean, I felt very privileged to be able to go to art school. My parents were very supportive and there's no guarantee of a career at the end of it, and there certainly wasn't the support back then that there is now for young artists. So for a long time I didn't do anything creative work-wise. I just tried to do it in my spare time as and when I could, and then I had family and so there was even less space for creative time.
Even then I would be involved in the kids' primary school and school fairs and things like that. I was always decorating the school and doing the Santa's grotto and things like that. I was always in some way involved—face painting. If there was anything on the creative side, I would be involved with it.
But then I think time took its toll and I remember feeling like there was something missing in my life and I really had to do something about that. I knew I had to be more creative and that part of it had been missing for a long time. That's when I got interested in felt making because it was suggested to me as an easy, relatively clean thing to do at home. When I paint, it's very messy, and I couldn't really make this much mess at home.
I think the Scottish coastline has always been an attraction to me. I grew up actually on the east coast of Scotland near Dundee, and we were minutes away from the beach there. I spent a lot of my childhood on the beach, and I was just used to having that outlook, looking out to sea, and I've just always loved walking along beaches.
My dad, when I was growing up, was in the merchant navy. My mum used to talk to my sister and I about where he was in the world, and I just always felt that there was this connection when you were at the shore, on the coast, and the water was lapping on the shore. I felt that there was a connection then to everywhere else in the world because the water moves around the world, and I used to think that although my dad was out at sea, when we were close to the sea, we were closer to him.
So there was a connection with the sea through my dad being in the merchant navy. My partner and I have moved all over the country, really, but we now live on the west coast of Scotland, and again the coastline and the beach is very much part of my everyday life.
I just love it. I love being, particularly on an empty beach on a day when the weather isn't good, because it's quiet and you can hear things more easily. I just love that feeling of the space, but also the intimacy of just walking alone along the beach and being surrounded by so much wide space. You've just got that expanse out in front of you and nobody else around, and I think that's what makes it so special.
I suppose coastlines are just always where we tend to go on holidays. I think people are generally drawn to water. There's some quote I picked up somewhere: "Saltwater cures everything, whether it's tears, sweat or the sea." I think that kind of sums it up—sometimes you need to cry, sometimes you need to work hard to make things work out for you, and sometimes the sea is what helps.
I also do a bit of open water swimming, which is a relatively new experience in the last few years and I just love that as well. I'm not an easy person in the sense that I like to observe the outdoors. I do walk and I swim, but I don't do a lot of hiking all the time. I like being outdoors and observing, and so even when I'm swimming, I tend to do a breast stroke with my head out of the water because I like soaking up the atmosphere while I'm swimming and just the peace of it all. Having this vast area surrounding you without anyone else in sight is probably the place I'm trying to get to when I'm painting really.
It's a bit like the way I'm feeling when I'm really immersed in a painting—that sort of "there's nothing else around for miles." It's this big wide space around my head and it's just me and the painting, and it's a bit like that when I'm swimming. There's nothing else around, so that's why I like the coastlines.
I suppose also there's this feeling of nostalgia when you grew up on a coast and you're used to being on the beach. I think the older we get, the more we look back in time at childhood memories and things with nostalgia, and that brings up some happy memories as well. So I'm always drawn to coastlines because that's where I've played and had beach parties in my teenage years. It's always been a factor in my life so far.
I suppose the main difference in the last few years is the output of work that I've made since taking up painting professionally. I'm producing on a much greater scale—probably producing about 50 paintings a year. Some of them are very small, but still it's surprising to me actually how much I've produced in a relatively short space of time. Again for this solo show that's coming up, it's all new work and it's really only been since December 2023 when I started. Hopefully I'll have between 30 and 40 paintings.
I suppose that's the difference in being a professional painter—it's just all consuming, but there's a much more consistent approach to it. Painting as a hobby, there was generally some particular reason that I was painting a particular thing or creating whatever piece of art, and it was sparked by one particular response to something. Whereas my painting practice now is an ever-ending response, and each painting, each group of painting is the jump-off point for the next group.
Although I do take a lot of outside inspiration, it's also looking at my own work as inspiration because I still feel I'm in the early stages and still growing into my style and trying to focus and just trying to really pinpoint in what areas my interests lie. I do have a good general idea of what that is, but there's always this feeling that I'm not quite there yet. It's still somewhere in the mid-distance that's where I'm aiming for, and maybe that's just always the way it will be because I'm always looking forward and looking to the next challenge in my painting.
It's a tricky one trying to call yourself a professional artist. For me it has been—I'm not sure there was a particular moment when I thought, "Oh, yes, I'm a professional artist now." It's sort of grown upon me and it's been a case of just gradually increasing confidence and getting feedback and just realizing the situations that I've been in with my work. Now I can call myself a professional artist, but sometimes I still have difficulty with it. I suppose it's that imposter syndrome thing.
But I think just having recognition from galleries and peers—that's come from the galleries that have approached me to show my work and also being in some artist groups. They've been very helpful dealing more with the business side of things, and so that's given me the sort of confidence that there's a checklist almost of things to do and stages to be in. I know that I am at a particular stage and there's still a long way to go with that, but I'm working at a level that other people have said, "Yes, you are a professional artist at this level."
But it's constantly improving and my confidence in my work is growing. That comes a bit from feedback, but it's also an internal confidence of just knowing what I like about my work and being able to create that again. Going through the phases that I go through—there's lots of feelings of losing confidence and feeling like I just can't paint. What am I even thinking of, thinking that I can have an exhibition? I think lots of artists feel that way all the time, no matter what stage you are at.
But the more time I spend painting and doing it and going back to it again and again and again, you recognize when those moments of crisis come up. You can talk yourself through it and get through that and then it comes back. Those are just the blips where things are not going well and you don't know what to do next.
Generally that's an important thing that I've learned recently in these recent months because the pressure has been on to continue painting. I tell myself all the time now, "Just paint," and if it's not working on one painting, I pick up another painting and I just paint and I just keep going. Eventually something good happens and it turns the tide, and then energy is back and I'm off and I can get excited about things again.
Creatives do tend to be quite hard on themselves, and it feels so personal. You work on your own a lot. There's not a lot of feedback often, or conversation. Artists tend to be isolated and working away on their own, and so it can play tricks with your head sometimes when things aren't going so well. But I definitely feel that I'm now a bit more confident and able to recognize those moments and realize that they are just part of the process. You will have those moments—there's no way of avoiding them.
Generally the paintings that I've ended up being happiest with are the ones that have given me the most problems during the making of them. You hate them for ages, and then you end up loving them because you've been through so much with them. It's kind of a relationship that's formed with the painting.
I think I'm just passionate about how it makes me feel. I've realized that I have to paint in order to feel happy and sane at times. I love coming into the studio. I love this being my space. Even a bad day painting, even when it's all going wrong—I know now I have the confidence to know that it is still just part of the process and I've still made progress on a bad day. It might not seem like it at that moment, but it's still part of the way towards the solution of these paintings.
I just feel so fortunate to be able to do this. My circumstances have allowed me to be able to get a studio and I have some time that I can put into this—maybe not as much as I'd like, but as much as I can fit in, and it just makes me really, really happy. I'm doing something that I never dreamed I would be allowed to do.
If you'd asked me when I was young, "What would I want to do?" I would want to paint all day. That's what I would like to do with my life. And that just seemed like a ridiculous notion and nobody was going to let me do that. And now I'm doing it and I can't believe it sometimes, really.
Even better, I'm able to show my work in galleries and exhibitions, which is something that I've always sort of looked at other artists doing. I secretly really, really wanted to be there. It's just a good place to be and I like to remind myself how fortunate I am to be doing this.
It helps with everything in life really. I think if you've got a passion that you can go to and you can spend a bit of time on that passion every day, then it just helps with coping with life really and all the ugliness of life out there and the terrible things that are going on. Sometimes it feels a bit trivial painting all day compared to the real world and what's going on in the world, but then I know how much it helps me cope with that.
I think for people to have art in their life—well, it's such a personal thing and it means a lot to people to have some beauty or interest or whatever the art is, something that takes them slightly out of the real world and the despair and all the terrible things that are going on.
Something beautiful—creating things from nothing is amazing. Creating anything, I think, brings so much to life. It's an amazing position to be in to be able to do that and to be able to have my work in other people's homes. That's a wonderful feeling.
I think it is important in life. We have to remember even in all the hard times that we have at the moment, it's important to remember how much we need beauty and art and things that make us feel something, feel alive and happy.
