Understory is a body of hand-painted calligraphy ink landscapes using the Scottish Highlands as an alternative language for embodied experience, drawn through the Gaelic concepts of dùthchas, an inherited belonging to place, and cianalas, a longing for home. Grown from research into chronic pain and arboreal metaphor, the work explores snags and altered trees as forms of endurance, tracing a spiral from unknowing towards belonging, shaped in part by an autism and ADHD diagnosis. Four ink paintings, five plywood works, and a silent looped video were arranged for the CSM King's Cross graduate show, earning the CSM Cass Art Award 2026 for innovative use of materials.
