The Project
River Ness Hydro Mural
Depicting the life cycle of the Atlantic Salmon, the mural shows their journey from Egg to Adulthood. In an imagined River Ness, colourful salmon swim from the river to the sea, and then back to the river where they finally spawn and complete their spectacular cyclical voyage.
Local Artists Jacqueline Briggs and Izzy Thomson hosted a workshop at Eden Court Theatre where Inverness residents were invited to decorate, draw and paint their own Atlantic Salmon in it’s various life stages. Hand painted by the two artists, each fish within the mural was directly inspired by the fish created by local residents with participants ranging from all ages, backgrounds and genders.
The Artists
Izzy Thomson
Izzy Thomson is a painter, who makes narrative paintings from remembered landscapes. Izzy graduated from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen in 2016, with a First Class BA (Hons) in Painting. She was then selected for the year-long Graduate Residency at Leith School of Art, Edinburgh. Izzy was then awarded a Dewar Arts Award for a studio in Wasps, Inverness Creative Academy, where she is currently based. In 2019, she was invited to paint a Mural the City Museum of Skopje, North Macedonia, during a residency titled ‘In Between States’, curated by Jon Blackwood and Holly Knox Yeoman. Izzy has won several awards, which recently include a self-directed residency, funded by the Visual Artist and Craft Makers Award, 2021. This award enabled research into how to make paintings about the Cromarty Firth – its biodiversity, history, and folklore – using sustainable and biodegradable oil painting pigments and materials. Izzy has also worked across Set Design and Illustration, as well as other community art projects such as ‘The River of Hope‘, 2022. Izzy has recently graduated from Aardman Academy’s Stop Motion One Course. Her place was funded by Creative Access.
Website: www.izzythomson.co.uk
Instagram: @izzythomson1
Jacqueline Briggs
Jacqueline Briggs is an illustrator and mural artist from the Black Isle.
Growing up in the Scottish Highlands with a Scottish father and Papua New Guinean mother she is inspired by the contrasting culture, people and natural landscape of her dual heritage.
She has worked on a number of public artworks such as The Black Lives Matter Mural Trail at Eden Court Theatre (2020), Dundee Festive Windows with V&A Dundee and Unesco Dundee (2021) and Vaccine Voyages with The University of Edinburgh (2022).
Since graduating with BDes Hons in Illustration in 2016 at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee she currently works from her studio in Wasps Creative Academy, Inverness.
Website: www.jacquelinebriggsillustration.com
Instagram: @jacquelinebriggsart