Power Of The Flower

Kirsty Lorenz’s floral paintings do much more than simply record the beauty of nature

- Catherine Coyle

Kirsty Lorenz had been in Fife for just a week when she unearthed a new art studio. “I’d been putting notices up in shop windows,” explains the artist, “when I was told to go and talk to Marjorie Ward, the station master.” When Marjorie produced a huge bunch of keys and unlocked the semi-derelict buildings on Platform 2 at Ladybank Station, Lorenz could see she had stumbled upon somewhere very special in which to develop her practice.

“I was among the first to take part in the Adopt a Station scheme, and I don’t think I really knew what I was taking on,” admits the artist. The scheme offers small businesses, organisations and local people the chance to occupy abandoned station buildings for nominal rents. “For £1 a year, I had the station restaurant, which dates from around 1850,” she smiles. The building’s listed status meant she had to engage the local authority planning department; with funding grants from the Railway Heritage Trust, Business Gateway and Fife Contemporary Arts, she was able to transform the space into a series of studio rooms where she can paint and display her work. The platform itself also provides a viewing gallery of sorts; each time a train arrives (Ladybank is a fully operational station), a new audience gets a glimpse of her vibrant floral canvases hanging in the windows.