Town Canal by Scottish painter Mardi Barrie (1930–2004) captures, through loose and expressive brushstrokes, a canal winding through a collection of buildings that line its banks. Barrie was known for her landscape scenes, like this one, as well as her depictions of interiors. Her partial yet never fully committed embrace of abstraction is evident in this painting, where the dynamic brushwork allows the contours of some elements to blend into one another. 

Mardi Barrie, 1930-2004

Born in Kirkcaldy and trained at Edinburgh College of Art, Barrie became a teacher at Broughton High School in Edinburgh. She painted mainly landscapes and interiors in oils, with an emphasis on loose, expressive brushstrokes and harmonious colour, leaning towards abstraction but rarely becoming fully abstract. Following two solo exhibitions with the Douglas and Foulis Gallery in Edinburgh in the 1960s, she went on to exhibit regularly with the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh and the Bruton Gallery in Somerset. In the 1980s, she had three solo exhibitions at the Thackeray Gallery in London.