Artist Statement - Painting has been a constant and developing passion in which I am increasingly absorbed. Inspiration still comes from trips to the islands around Scotland, as well as further afield in Italy and Australia and closer to home in the more gentle rural landscape of the fields and hills around my studio here in Angus. Landscape continues to be the stimulus for much of my painting. Over time the work has become more abstract and I work freely with the paint to express the mood and atmosphere of time and place. Working on a subject,I may produce a series of paintings, refining each attempt as in the drafting of a poem.
The work I have selected for this exhibition concentrates largely on images inspired by elements encountered in the immediate surroundings of my studio and garden; images observed constantly and absorbed, distilled to be later painted in the studio.
‘Spring Planting’ for example was painted quickly and directly as a simple statement of the beauty , symmetry and graphic quality of a newly planted leek bed.
In contrast the two paintings, ‘ The Flood’ and ‘Into the Calm’ have their inspiration in ’The Great Flood’ from Edwin Morgan’s sequence of poems,‘Planet Wave’. Here I try to use the paint freely to express the threatening storm and the calm of the aftermath; the narrative moving across the painting from left to right ‘into the calm’.
1961 -65 Duncan of Jordanstone College of
Art Dundee D.A. Drawing and
Painting
1965 Awarded David Murray Studentship.
Royal Academy Schools London
1965 -66 Dundee College of Education
1966 -88 A period of Art teaching in Glasgow and the Scottish Highlands during which a parallel developing interest in ceramics led to the establishment of my studio at Insh near Kingussie.
In 1988 I gave up teaching and established my present studio at Oathlaw, initially mainly working in ceramics. Over the
years painting has increasingly absorbed me and I have now given up ceramics to
concentrate full time on painting.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2017 ‘On a Small Scale, Open Eye Gallery Edinburgh
2017 RSW 6th Annual Summer Exhibition Lillie Gallery Milnagavie
2017 Larks Gallery Ballater Aberdeenshire
2017 RSW Annual Winter Exhibition Edinburgh
2016 ‘On a Small Scale’ Open Eye Gallery Edinburgh
2016 RSW 5th Annual Summer Open Exhibition Meffan Gallery Forfar
2016 Spring Exhibition Tolquhon Gallery Ellon
2015 ‘On a Small Scale’ Open Eye Gallery Edinburgh
2015 RSW Annual Winter Exhibition Edinburgh
2015 Open Eye gallery Edinburgh. Mixed Exhibition
2015 RSW Annual Winter Exhibition Edinburgh
2015 Open Eye gallery Edinburgh. Mixed Exhibition
2015 RSW Annual Exhibition Edinburgh
2014 RSW 3rd Annual Summer Exhibition
2014 VAS Members Exhibition Peebles
2013 RSW Annual Exhibition Edinburgh
2013 VAS Annual Exhibition
2005 VAS Annual exhibition
2015 “Commended” Annual Winter Exhibition Meffan Gallery Forfar
2009 Second Prize Annual Exhibition Meffan Gallery Forfar
1998 £500 Purchase Prize Annual Exhibition Forfar
1965 David Murray Studentship Royal Academy Schools London
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Aberdeen Art Gallery (ceramics)
Angus Council Collection (painting)
Duncan of Jordanstone College Collection (painting)
COMMISSIONS
Royal Tay Yacht Club Veitchi Group Trophy
Bank of Scotland Two Arts in Business Scotland Awards