ALLAN MACDONALD
Back of Beyond
COVER IMAGE
Beacon, Cul Mhor oil on canvas | 76cm x 101cm
+44 (0) 1463 783 230
art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk
Kilmorack Gallery, Inverness-shire iv4 7al SCOTLAND
ALLAN MACDONALD
Back of Beyond
16 AUGUST - 13 SEPTEMBER 2025
Snowcloud, Suiven oil on canvas
76cm x 101cm
It is rare for me to be so excited about a collection of paintings, but this latest body of work by Allan MacDonald raises goosebumps on my right arm, and these goosebumps rekindle the origional goosebump-moments: catching site of the sleeping sphinx-like mass of Suilven; hearing the vast moving green sea as it pounds pre-Cambrian rock; mists of singing salt spray; warm winter light in a frozen land; a family of birches witnessing seasons, rooted and growning; the first fingers of awakening light; and a whale that swims silently known only by tail and spout. MacDonald transports me to these very real moments again-and-again and his visons, although we share many of them, are his own. Maybe some of the power of these paintings is because they are shared, with the trinity of land, paint and God - with MacDonald stepping back to let it happen, for it to come through him and not by him. He has stopped thoughts that halt the natural flow of hands and canvas. By stepping back a little, MacDonald has gone forward. It is almost thirty years that we have been exhibiting MacDonald’s work, and he is always going forwards and this collection of work shows he is leading the pack.
Tony Davidson Director of Kilmorack Gallery
YellowTriangle, Assynt oil on board | 25cm x 30cm
In and out, Cul Mhor oil on canvas | 61cm x 91cm
All lit up oil on canvas | 61cm x 91cn
Without end, Mangersta oil on canvas | 76cm x 101cn
Destination, Ness Point oil on canvas | 61cm x 91cm
Rise and fall, Dalbeg oil on canvas | 40cm x 100cm
Breaking Point oil on canvas | 35cm x 90cm
Taking the hit, Ness Point oil on canvas | 30cm x 40cm
Onrush, Mangersta oil on canvas | 76cm x 101cm
Afterglow, Cul Mhor oil on canvas | 25cm x 30cm
Birch Fingers, North West oil on canvas | 25cmx 30cm
Winter, Assynt oil on board | 25cm x 35cm
Pale morning, Suilven oil on board | 20cm x 30cm
Road to somewhere, Cross (Lewis) oil on canvas | 25cm x 30cm
Signposts, Carloway oil on canvas | 76cm x 101cm
The Long Wait, Kilmorack cemetary oil on board | 25cm x 35cm
Spring, Kilmorack cemetery oil on board | 25cm x 30cm
All is Bright oil on canvas | 61cm x 91cm
Earthrise, Eyjafjordur oil on canvas | 120cm x 150cm
Back of Beyond is a collection of paintings garnered from various locations in the last year. One reason for the title is it refers to somewhere yet nowhere. It has the same ambiguity as ‘in the middle of nowhere.’ It’s impossible to be in the middle of somewhere that doesn’t exist, yet we have an instant resonance with the phrase. These are paintings done with a dual intent: painted at a specific time and a specific place but specifically timeless and universal. The gravestone and its shadow; the tree and the wind that bends it.
These are paintings about the Beyond and the back of it. The Beyond bit included silhouetted churches cresting the low-slung hills of Lewis: the distilled silence of the Eastfjords in the North of Iceland: Advent celebrated at the cemetery of Hrisey; the extremities of Mangersta and Cul Mhor; the old graveyard with sun-licked trees and crumbling headstones near Kilmorack.
At the back of all these locations lies the interesting bit. I like travelling through cities on a train, you often get to see the dishevelled back of properties rather than the well-maintained front. Backstage is where the real show takes place. This applies to us too. We are all probably more honest within the walls of our own home than when we present to the world at large.
At the cemetery near Kilmorack, one headstone recorded the deaths of five children from one family. ‘Asleep in Jesus’ the distraught parents had engraved at the base. On a flawless spring day in 2025 the sense of death
as a long sleep lingered in the air. As daffodil trumpets caught the sun, I had a conviction that a cemetery was a waiting place, not a terminal.
On Hrisey, near midnight, a luminous green hovered in the sky, full of promise. The silence was broken by the strains of Silent Night: it was Advent, and the island folk sung carols in defiance of the dark vastness above them.
Carloway church on the island of Lewis stood haloed on the horizon, straddling the line between a blazing gold sundown and dark tangible earth. For some reason the words ‘choose life’ came to mind: the film Trainspotting used the phrase as a mantra but it was Moses who came up with it first.
In 1968, the astronaut William Anders took an iconic photo of the earth, one which altered not just the way we see the planet but also the way we see ourselves. It was a new view of the earth, as though someone had wandered round the back of our world and revealed a hidden truth, a vision I echoed in the painting ‘Earthrise, Eyjafjordur’.
The author George Macdonald, a pioneering figure in modern fantasy literature, wrote a book called ‘At the Back of the North Wind,’ a story that flits between two worlds. Back of Beyond draws from the same well, though in a less specific manner. The paintings merge sensory perception with the imperceptible: they are hints of a hinterland, postscripts from the backwoods, outtakes from the outback.
Allan MacDonald
July 2025
Earthrise, Hirsey oil on canvas | 40cm x 50cm
