A range of Textile artworks by Rachael Jane MacDonald

2026 marks the 800th year of Dingwall being a Royal Burgh. In celebration of this Rachael will be creating a body of work in response to folkloric and symbolic narratives from Dingwall's past.

Ross-shire based Rachael Jane MacDonald began her career at art college, completing a degree in Performance Costume. Years of designing and making for theatre and working as a designer for her own fashion label led her to realise her love was really for textiles and she returned to complete her MA in Textiles. She has since been evolving as a textile artist and painter, whilst lecturing at UHI, Inverness.

Scottish folktales, superstitions and beliefs inform her current work. These narratives give a sense of how people used to experience their world; as a multi-dimensional and symbolic shifting place imbued with a sense of possibility and otherness.

Rachael draws her visuals from a mindful engagement with nature – layering colours, marks and pigments in a reflective and intuitive way to encapsulate the sense of otherworldliness held within folktales. She works with natural dyes, rust dyes, printmaking, embroidery, gold leaf and cyanotype.

Description supplied by the event organiser.