How Scottish artists were pioneers in responding to climate change

When James Morrison, the late Scottish artist, travelled to the Arctic in 1995 he was shocked by what he saw. “We are hell bent on destroying the planet,” he said on his return.

“I simply do not see Homo sapiens making the decisions, the self-sacrificing decisions, to save the planet. I think the planet will run on to oblivion.”

So convinced was he that action must be taken that he committed himself to Arctic Mural, a massive painting of the landscape 20ft wide, depicting the snow-clad ground but also the encroaching sea.

Arctic Mural (1995) by James Morrison, on a 20ft wide canvas

JOHN MCKENZIE/THE FLEMING COLLECTION

Morrison admired the fortitude of the forcibly resettled Inuit

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Working alongside a community of Inuit people who had been forcibly resettled from their traditional territories by the Canadian government, Morrison admired their fortitude, and was determined to reflect the pressures they