St Catherine’s Quay, Honfleur Possibly 1906

Curator: Dugald Sutherland Maccoll's watercolor work, St Catherine's Quay, Honfleur, presents a subdued streetscape. It makes me think of memory, somehow… a place revisited and rendered through the filter of time. Editor: I'm struck by the texture of the paper itself, and the way the wash creates a sense of place without heavy detail. The rapid, almost casual lines give it immediacy. Curator: The image possesses an archetypal quality. The boats, the buildings – they echo countless historical images of port cities, almost a collective visual memory. Editor: But look at the buildings – the repetitive forms, the slight variations – it's almost industrial in its feel. How the architecture interacts with the port is crucial. Curator: Perhaps it speaks to the eternal human desire to connect, to trade, to venture beyond known horizons; ports as symbolic doorways. Editor: And doorways built of very specific materials, shaped by precise social and economic forces. I like how those forces are quietly present. Curator: The emotional pull of visual symbols, embedded over centuries. Editor: And the physical effort embedded in every mark on this page.