'Caileag Ghrinn' by Susan Torrance and Niketa Shetty

This exhibition was a collaboration inspired by and the artists' individual responses to our relationship with the waters of Loch Lomond and in particular the life and times of the paddle steamer Maid of the Loch. Built in 1953 as the last of her line, she carried passengers powered by her steam engines and magnificent paddles around the loch until 1981, providing everlasting memories of holidays, the excitement of movement through water and the romance of travel from times gone by.

The Loch itself is timeless, its archaeological traces dissolved by water which can preserve, but mainly rusts, disguises, disappears and returns artefacts to molecules and components. The Maid remains and is renewed by the hard work and love of her current caretakers. She is locked in forever, in our time, within the Loch. We were fortunate enough to be given some fragments, cut from repair work, which have been returned to the water and her birthplace on the Clyde as well as displayed here in all their beauty.