Glen Onwin: “Using materials of the place, like black coal dust and white china clay, honored both the environment and its history.”

Creating art that changes as nature does

Glen Onwin discusses his journey, from childhood curiosity to an art practice that fuses science, ecology, and landscape, using natural materials to reflect the beauty and transience of changing ecosystems.

Glen Onwin is a celebrated artist whose work occupies a unique intersection of art, science, and environmental engagement. Known for his deeply contemplative approach, Onwin investigates the subtle relationships within natural landscapes, particularly salt marshes and mineral-rich environments. His artworks explore complex themes of natural change, ecological balance, and the quiet yet powerful interactions between land and water, capturing the essence of these landscapes as “living laboratories.” With a career that spans decades and includes notable installations such as “As Above So Below” and “The Recovery of Dissolved Substances”, Onwin’s creations are praised for their integrity and for inviting viewers to see landscapes not as static scenery but as dynamic systems in perpetual transformation. His body of work represents not only an aesthetic exploration but a profound engagement with the natural world, challenging us to observe it with both curiosity and respect.

Onwin delves into the early experiences that sparked his interest in salt marshes, his quasi-scientific perspective on art, and his dedication to “truth to materials.” He shares insights into his artistic evolution, his methods of integrating local substances into his pieces, and his vision for site-specific installations. This conversation offers a rare glimpse into the mind of an artist whose work resonates deeply with nature’s rhythms, and who brings a poetic sensitivity to landscapes often overlooked.

Glen Onwin’s work bridges art and science, creating compelling landscapes that honour the raw beauty, complexity, and impermanence of nature.

Can you describe how your early experiences in Edinburgh influenced your artistic development and interest in salt marshes?

When I was a child in the early 1950’s everything was very different World War II had ended but it was still a period of deep austerity. Opposite where I lived was an area of open ground during the war people had used the area as an ‘ad hoc’ allotment to grow vegetables, potatoes etc. In the middle of this area, now reverted to a field, were two abandoned and now grass encroached red shale tennis courts, these were on slightly different levels, when it rained which was frequently these became huge rusty red puddles. These spaces were an endless source of fascination for me I loved the changes from dusty dry red shale on summer days to mud in winter then to reflective red pools. This is the closest I can get to why when I came across an actual salt marsh it resonated so deeply with me – before my eyes instantly turning from a grassy sea water saturated field to a reflection of the sky.

What drew you to approach landscape painting from a quasi-scientific perspective, and how does that influence your work?

I would never consider what I do as landscape painting. As a student of drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art in the sixties, after a rigorous what would now be called academic training, searching for ‘my own voice’ I became fascinated by land art, art povera and the idea of truth to materials. At high school I greatly enjoyed the sciences particularly biology, possibly due to the enthusiasm of my teacher, at one stage I even wanted to be a marine biologist. On completing my art school years I was searching for a subject something perhaps contained, perhaps a particular place or environment, a woodland, a quarry or something of that sort. When I came across the salt marsh, I knew I had found it. I worked with that marsh for several years, observing the salt marsh, I noticed several things, the parts reflected the whole and it was clearly an interdependent eco system which lay at the margins between land and sea, wet and dry, fluid and solid. Above all it was driven and dominated by salinity – to me a kind of open-air laboratory. Perhaps not science as such but an attempt to study matter by working directly with substances, observing reaction but above all allowing the substances to be themselves, working with nature, trying to avoid the presence of my own hand.

Can you talk about the materials and techniques you use in your artworks, especially in relation to natural change?

Truth to materials has always been an important aspect of my practice at one stage I thought manufactured art materials were a no-no. When working on the marsh I used the stuff of the place itself, binding earths, muds and plant dyes with wax. That said I still worked very traditionally on canvas but always stretched over boards. I did not see these as paintings of things but as things in themselves, not depictions but creations or recreation from observation. This led in turn to a study of the substance salt (NaCl) itself which became ‘The Recovery of Dissolved Substances’. Change has become increasingly important to my practice to me it reflects in microcosm the workings of our world.

How did your installation ‘As Above So Below’ at the Square Chapel reflect your artistic vision and engagement with the site?

I was given the opportunity to use the cubic space of the Square Chapel in Halifax by the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust. The building had been stabilised but appeared to be semi derelict. The structure of the building generated in my mind the possibilities of an upper and lower space which could be accessed by the viewing public taking the form of a journey or a circular adventure where the individual returned, but changed, to their starting point after an adventure into the underworld.

What themes or concepts did you aim to explore through your participation in projects like “The Quality of Light”?

The work I made for this large group exhibition was again site generated, I was given the industrial workspace of the Geevor tin mine where raw ore was originally sifted and separated. Only the foundations remained of the ‘shaking tables’ the equipment used for this process. I used these foundations as the basis for structures which were in turn worked by a group of four individuals working in pairs throughout the day in a kind of choreographed representation of the original industrial process. These individuals were at that time unemployed employing these young people both in the construction of the work and in the presentation was very impotent to me. Again I used the materials of the place (all related to Cornwall) as liquid slurries in the esoteric symbolic colours of black (coal dust), white (china clay), red (tin ore), yellow (a ceramic clay), Other thoughts related to the title “The Quality of Light” the light which would be experienced by the tin miners as they emerged from underground after their long dark shifts.

As a professor at Edinburgh College of Art, how do you integrate your artistic practice with your teaching?

The Edinburgh College of Art where I am an emeritus professor, no longer exists, I retired from teaching in 2010, just before the college was absorbed into the University of Edinburgh. To me it has become an ‘invisible college’ you will find no record of my thirty-two-year teaching career on the current college web site or archive. Consequently, to me it has become invisible, existing only in the minds and memories of those who attended that extraordinary institution. As a teacher I never imposed ideas onto my students I saw my job as helping the individual students to achieve in the best way possible what they wanted to do. That said I still invite students who are interested in my practice to visit my studio where thoughts and ideas are discussed in the presence of my working materials.

EDITOR’S HIGHLIGHTS