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Danielle Macleod
Danielle Macleod is a mask maker and photographer based in the Isle of Lewis. Her photography draws on traditional Hebridean culture, local stories and her upbringing there. Her practice involves creating wearable sculptures from foraged and discovered natural materials. When these masks are photographed in the natural environment they bring to life creatures that exist in an other-world, demonstrating the artist’s connection to her culture, tradition and place.
Michéla Griffith
In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be: my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. Water has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
Place can call to us at any stage of life or career. Leaving art school early mid-pandemic turned out to be an unexpected opportunity for Danielle. Returning to the Isle of Lewis and its abundance of natural materials helped to spark her creativity, and a mentorship through An Lanntair's Artist Support Scheme provided the confidence needed to develop a personal practice outside of art school.
Through making in conjunction with photography, Danielle has learned to be playful, experiment, and notice the details of the landscape through the seasons. She is drawn to explore local crafts, experiences and folklore in her projects and embraces analogue photography for its timeless quality and discipline.
Ailinn
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, what your early interests were and what you went on to study?
I grew up in a small coastal village called Gress in the Isle of Lewis, in the Western Isles. I lived in a spacious, diverse natural landscape right beside the beach, machair and moorland, and spent much of my childhood and adolescence playing and walking in these areas. After school I worked for the family business for a year, and later moved to Glasgow to study Psychology. One year in I realised the course wasn’t for me. During that period of study, my favourite project was one where we had to make a poster about a health condition, which I threw myself into creatively, incorporating collage into my final poster - that was when I realised that I really wanted to go to art school.