AN Australian artist has been delving deep into the archives to help create new constellations and connections.

Kate Scardifield explored the collections from six Scottish museums ahead of her unique touring exhibition Ley Lines arriving in Hawick.

And she has presented new work responding to and interacting with objects from the past that connect Scotland and Australia.

Presenting and creating art in a new context, Ley Lines takes the work of Scottish Astronomer and Governor of New South Wales Thomas Brisbane as a starting point.

Brisbane was one of the first to map the constellations of the southern hemisphere and in Ley Lines Kate Scardifield creates and connects new constellations.

Speaking ahead of the exhibition opening at Hawick Museum last month Kate said: "During my five-week residency I visited St Andrews, Kirkcaldy, the Scottish Borders, Ayrshire, Glasgow and Falkirk, delving into cavernous museum storage facilities.

"The metaphor I began to use in my thinking and that continues to underpin the conceptual rationale for this project is of each collection as its own celestial configuration, its own unique constellation of knowledge.

"I hope visitors to the exhibition will find space to share new, possibly untold, stories about their local area, their community and Scotland’s connection to Australia."

Ley Lines, which is being exhibited in the Scott Gallery at Hawick Museum until May 18, links aspects of Scotland’s unique heritage, across regional locations, connected to such colonial mapping and territory marking.

For each touring location, historic material is exchanged and arranged as new and distinct local constellations around Scardifield’s commissioned works.

Though diverse in function, scale and material, what unites the loaned objects across collections is visible through the traces of their making.

From tool to ornament - Roman clay pot, domestic glass jar, industrial lino cutter or embroidered trade banner - physical marks of hand-production are evident.

Their classification temporarily revised, Scardifield re-appraises these objects and their personal histories in order to unearth hidden narratives of people and places from within our institutional collections.

Presented through a series of cabinets, connected by reimagined navigational lines, for Ley Lines, Scotland’s past is reimagined through our everyday objects.

Shona Sinclair, curator at Hawick Museum and the Scott Gallery, said: 'I am delighted to welcome Ley Lines to the Scott Gallery, it is a visually stunning and thought provoking show.

"Kate visited the museum and viewed items from our collection over a year ago and it is fantastic to see how she has used these to stimulate ideas for her work.

"The actual archive pieces merge seamlessly with her creations and give a unique perspective on how these can be interpreted and presented in new work."