The artist Reinhard Behrens was born in Germany and attended the Hamburg School of Fine Arts from 1971 to 1978. While there, he was given the opportunity to spend the summer months on an excavation site on the west coast of Turkey. Sadly (or perhaps fortunately considering what happened next) he became ill with sunstroke. It was whilst recuperating in bed that he came across an article in a Turkish newspaper, which told the story of an accident between a cargo ship and a submarine. Seeing this reminded him of a toy submarine he had found off the coast of the German North Sea a year before.

The name of the ship was NABOLAND.

Ever since then, the world of NABOLAND has been the main focus in all of Reinhard's art. NABOLAND is a mythical place that seems never to be reached and the endless search is undertaken by Reinhard's very own toy submarine.

Behrens came to Scotland to attend a postgraduate course in drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art. And now he lives in the artist's enclave that is Pitenweem.

I love his work and just as importantly, the concept behind it which he has stayed true to decades after the original idea popped into his sunstroked mind.

I have 2 of his pieces,one which I bought on a visit to his studio where I actually. got to hold the toy submarine which sparked his mental leap.

Seek out NABOLAND for yourself. It's a fantastic journey.