Northern Soul - Ian Scott Massie

Northern Soul – Ian Scott Massie

The character of the North of England through the personality of its special places. A personal journey by Ian Scott Massie.

Ian Scott Massie came to the North of England in September 1973. At the age of twenty he had come to learn how to be a music teacher, at a college in Durham. He says in Northern Soul, the book which accompanies the exhibition:

“Little did I know that the North would make me. I would grow up there, discover talents for teaching and making art that I never suspected, discover places and music and stories that I would love for the rest of my life, and find happiness.”

Moonlight, Whitby – Ian Scott Massie

Wakefield – Ian Scott Massie

Coniston Water – Ian Scott Massie

“So I’ve approached the Northern Soul as though it were a jigsaw puzzle: examining the pieces I’ve come across over the years for what they can tell me. I’ve got some bits of the edge and some promising parts of the middle but I’d be lying if I said I was close to completing it. There are parts of the North I know only slightly and others I know like the back of my hand, and I’ll plead guilty now to favouring some places over others because that’s just the way it is.”

Thornley Colliery – Ian Scott Massie

The M62 – Ian Scott Massie

Tees Transporter Bridge – Ian Scott Massie

“So this book is at once the log of a long, as yet unfinished, journey, and a love letter to the North of England. It’s about the places I’ve known and painted, and what part they play in this complex, careworn, mountainous, multifaceted, wavetossed, warm-welcoming, windblown, freezing, friendly, tough spirited, tender hearted, rusty, rebellious, ruinous, green, golden, chilled- out, challenging, deeprooted, dale-scattered, subtle, smoky, special land.”

https://www.ianscottmassie.com