Darren Jones: Portrait as a Gargoyle, 2012, digital print, variable dimensions

A lone sentinel, monumentalized in stone, clings to the ancient tower, crouching above the battlements as it surveys the surrounding forests and the flood plains of the River Forth, three thousand feet below.

The Burns of Sorrow and Care are two rivers that thunder down a mountain ravine in the Ochil Hills. As they pass through the deep forests and steep walls of Dollar Glen they surround a sheer, rocky crag, forming an island. Balefully situated atop this promontory clings the brooding Castle Glume, an enigmatic fortress which lowers over the surrounding plains.

There is a particular desolate and beautiful loneliness to this location which is palpable and where one may become lost not only in the passing clouds and mist but within history itself. In Scotland, past and present, myth and reality have been seamlessly woven together through oral and written traditions over many centuries. The result is a captivating cultural landscape where the dividing line between our conscious world and the supernatural realm is, porous at its most structured, and more often, entirely fluid.

Darren Jones