Sitting beyond the outskirts north of Glasgow, Carbeth is a place of contrasts, hanging in the balance between old and new, public and private, escape and reality, isolation and community.

These polarities are not conveyed explicitly in the images of Frances McCourt, but stories are told in these photographs, if you allow yourself access into them. The atmosphere is calm. Separated from any explanation, place and time are also hard to pin down. This seems to give scope to the images for objective detatchment or subjective engagement, attributes duly deployed by the artist in this project.

Originally a unique social experiment and holiday site in the 1920s, Carbeth land-owners allowed working class city residents to build small huts at their own expense in return for a nominal fee to enjoy nature, an outdoor swimming pool and access to walking and mountaineering routes. Carbeth also became a refuge for Glasgow and Clydebank wartime evacuees and a welcome retreat for industrial city-dwellers to escape the grime and stress of the city and spend summers with their families and children in an idyllic - if basic - environment. Modern day huts are mostly used for weekend and recreational use, with building work and new huts a common site, although many of the original huts exist and stringent restrictions on building heights, colours and materials, going back almost a century, mean many seem utterly timeless. The individual character of the huts themselves implies both a request for distinctiveness and a respect for tradition, as each 'hutter' strives to create their own identity through the building of these huts and gardens, each hut steeped in it's own unique history and personal family story.

'Carbeth' is an accomplished series which continues McCourt's concerns in her photography with home and the built environment.

Frances McCourt is Ayrshire-born and lives and works in Glasgow. Following graduating from Glasgow School of Art's Fine Art Photography Dept in 2002, she has continued to explore themes of alienation, home, community and our connection with urban/rural environments through her work. She has also worked in arts education, social history and community based projects in Scotland, where possible combining these elements with her own photography.