Katy Thomson

As you would expect from a restaurant that is still in the process of being built, there is a lot of noise and construction going on.  At the exact moment of typing that full stop (or period, for you Americanos), there was a loud metal clang to prove my point.  Today, Zizzi is positvely buzzing with activity in preparation for opening its doors to the public.  I take my place at a table with a rather nice riverside view and in spitting distance of a plug socket (phew).

There is an intense amount of work going on around me.  Large boxes of crockery are being ripped open whilst the builders work on the kitchen, ready for opening night on Saturday.  For a restaurant, I guess the kitchen's completion is pretty vital.  I feel like I should be helping.  I did once lend a hand to the construction of a wooden chair from Argos. No doubt, that's the first thing they would look for on a CV.

However, the most interesting bit of work around me comes from resident artist, Katy Thomson, 22.  Katy is originally from Aberdeen but now lives in Edinburgh and graduated from Edinburgh College of Art.  She will be spending the entire week working on her piece which stretches across 2 soon-to-not-be white walls.  A busy, working artist, Katy only has one day off when she returns to Edinburgh before she begins work on building a stage for a local festival.  Katy tells me her vision for the artwork and how Inverness has inspired her.

"I do drawing and installation type work.  The drawings that I usually do are much, much smaller.  They're a lot like the work I'm doing on the walls at the moment, only reduced about a million times so they are very small but very accurate.  In the drawings, I create an imaginary space and then I build it into reality, inviting the viewers to step inside these spaces and have a look around.

I have found it quite easy to blend my own style of art with the Zizzi project.  I had the idea from the outset to make it something that was much more related to what I would normally do.  I think my work's quite well adapted to being given sources of inspiration that I have to make something out of.  Projects like this are perfect.  I can be inspired by Inverness architecture and the Caledonian canal so it came quite naturally to create a blend of a realistic and imaginary landscape.

I wouldn't say that it's a direct representation of Inverness.  I communicate with the drawings my own interpretation.  All the architecture goes through my own imagination and then I put it on the wall.  You could say that it's quite distorted but that's what I see, my own vision of Inverness.  I try to create an atmosphere.  The architecture isn't in its normal setting.  There's loads and loads of condensed architecture that's piled on top of one another and then there's bits of castle peeking out the side.

I also worked on the art project in the Zizzi in Glasgow's west end which was quite intense.  I'm glad that I've got a bit more time up here.  I similarly based it on my interpretation of Glasgow, using bits of scenery that really stood out to me, such as the Waverley boats and the Glasgow skyline.  From working on that previous project, it's really taught me to have a time plan and schedule in place because with this work, I wanted to be a lot more adventurous with how much I could include.  I wanted it to be really dense and be able to develop it fully, like I would a piece of my own work.  The planning process always takes the most time.  I think that hopefully by tomorrow, I will have all the initial sketching done then I will start to go over it with marker pens.  I want to get a balance of really intensive bits and fade outs of the smokey mountains that you tend to get around Inverness.  They seem quite quiet and empty and you can really see them when the sun sets."

To find out more about Katy Thomson and to view her past drawing and installation work, you can visit Katy's website here