Book of Artists | Kilmorack Gallery | 2018

THE KILMORACK GALLERY

book of artists 2018

The Kilmorack Gallery

by Beauly, Inverness-shire IV4 7AL

Scotland (0) 1463 783 230 e-mail: art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk www.kilmorackgallery.co.uk

JAMES NEWTON ADAMS James Newton Adams (b. 1971) is best known for his faux naïve paintings and steel sculpture; often inspired by the peoples, animals and landscape of the Isle of Skye where he lives and works.

Adams’s work builds on great artists which preceded him – John Bellany, L.S. Lowry, Alfred Wallace and Lynn Chadwick – drawing inspiration from them while pursuing his own distinctive work.

“The acrylic paintings of James Newton Adams are naively drawn, often humorous and insightful observations of humanity. The artist’s use of stark black and white with expressionistic accents of colour captures everyday life with refreshing economy and joie de vivre.”

Georgina Coburn, arts writer

Adams was born in London where he studied sculpture before moving to the Highlands in 2004.

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PAUL BARNES The work of Paul Barnes (b 1971) has a wonderous quality - weaving together nature and animals with the folklore of Barnes’ native northeast corner of Scotland and Barnes’ own tribal imaginings.

The exquisite detail of Barnes’ work, its muted colours and a paint-surface that is reminiscent of fresco give his work an ancient feel that adds to its otherworldliness. The results are tender, allegorical and enduring.

Paul Barnes studied at Grays School of Art, Aberdeen, BA (Hons) Design and has exhibited extensively in the UK and USA. 3

SHONA BARR Shona Barr (b 1965) is a Scottish artist whose work vibrates with energy. Barr’s loose, colourful brushwork, and her deeply-felt inspiration from the natural world, make her one of the most exciting and evocative artists in Scotland.

Most of Barr’s paintings begin in watercolour outside, au plein air, where she seeks out the colours, light and essence of the landscape and flora. These smaller works are the basis of Barr’s work in the studio, where she creates large, impressive canvases, that retain the freshness of her surroundings. It is Barr’s rare, bold and direct approach, successfully capturing hidden aspects of place, that makes her paintings so captivating.

Shona Barr graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1988.

5

EDUARD BERSUDSKY Eduard Bersudsky (b 1939) is best known for Sharmanka, and its large mechanical sculptural theatre, seen in major public collections including the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. These kinetic shows are hauntingly powerful experiences.

The mechanical whirrs, clicks and the strange surreal scenes acted out tell of life’s stories. Themes of sex, death, religion and politics are revealed with a purity of expression as great as the finest book, play, painting or piece of music.

St Petersburg born Bersudsky is universally respected amongst an international artistic community, exhibiting in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and USA. 7

PAUL BLOOMER Before his move to Shetland in 1997 Paul Bloomer’s incredible woodcuts and drawings focused on urban subjects. Often on a vast scale and fuelled by social conscience, these visionary Black Country works show a compassionate humanism in their portrayal of people caught in lives no-one was meant to live.

Now living in Shetland, his work connects with a different energy.

Reacquainted with nature. Bloomer’s subjects morph into birds, hills and the sea. In contrast to his earlier works, Shetland shows a paradise.

Paul Bloomer (b. 1966) studied at the Royal Academy Schools, London, Post Graduate Diploma in Painting.

9

MARY BOURNE RSA MRBS

Mary Bourne’s sculpture reconnects us to the enduring force and fragility of nature. She is highly attuned to nature’s cycles – the slow curl of a wave or the delicate strength of a leaf – which she captures poetically in the permanence of stone. The passage of time and light is a strong element in her sculpture.

In her own words, Bourne’s Art is about “communication, not only between contemporaries but between generations: stone warmed and shaped by my hands will perhaps be warmed by the hands of someone in some unknowable time to come.”

Mary Bourne (b 1963) graduated from Edinburgh College of Art. She has received many private and public commissions in the UK, working with Page/Park,the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust and Historic Environment Scotland.

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EOGHAN BRIDGE Edinburgh-born sculptor Eoghan Bridge (b 1963) is known for his ceramic and bronze sculptures that explore the psychological relationship and bonds between animals and humans.

“Eoghan Bridge’s sculpture brings the representation of horse and rider to a new poetic place. Bridge’s horses are strong, beautiful and loving; the rider is vulnerable and trusting and when combined a powerful artistic chemistry happens.

Geometry, humour and emotion are all there in a language uniquely his own.“ Tony Davidson, Director of Kilmorack Gallery

Eoghan Bridge now lives and works in Yorkshire. Public commissions include the ‘Horse, Rider, Eagle’ at Silvermills, Edinburgh.

13

COLIN BROWN

Colin Brown (b. 1962) is known for his distinctive mixture of collage and paint. This is combined with a rich blending of cultures - ancient and modern, high and low - in works that are cerebral, beautiful and enduring.

Technically he is a maestro of his medium.

layered compositions of seduction and interrogation; exploring tensions between human drives of fluid creativity and control by design.”

Georgina Coburn, Arts writer

“Colin Brown’s superbly balanced compositions combine painterly, accidental marks with elements of formal design drawn from mass media advertising and popular culture. He creates beautifully

Colin Brown was born in Dundee and has worked throughout Europe and beyond, where many of his source materials and inspirations come from. He now lives and works in the northeast of Scotland..

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RUTH BROWNLEE The subject of Ruth Brownlee’s paintings is the far North. Shetland, Brownlee’s adopted home is over 150 miles north of John O’Groats, and her studio is close enough to the shoreline for her to hear the pebbles in the waves as she paints. It is an immersive world of constantly changing sky, sea and land. This rugged coastal environment has enraptured Brownlee and fuelled her work since her move to Shetland in 1998.

Brownlee’s sensitive paint handling and naturalistic palette brings us into contact with the imaginative expanse of the North Sea. The convergence of colour, light and texture in her paintings captures the physical sensations and emotive atmosphere of Shetland’s wild coast.

Ruth Brownlee (b 1973) studied at the Edinburgh College of Art. She is represented in private collections internationally and in public collections throughout the UK including Shetland Museum and the Fleming Collection, London.

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PATRICIA CAIN The subject matter of Patricia Cain’s work is the intricate weave of a hedge, the complex architecture of a dockyard, or an abstracted landscape distilling a place into colour and form. Beneath Cain’s images there is always the pure energy of drawing.

Cain explores how our minds construct meaning from what at first appear to be random marks.

Often on a large scale, Cain’s innovative work in mixed media and pastel (in her words) takes us to “a place where observation turns inwards” and where “this exchange of process and energy leads to continual transformation.”

Patricia Cain completed a PHD in Drawing Practice at Glasgow School of Art. Her much acclaimed solo exhibition Drawing (on) Riverside at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (2011) cemented her reputation as one of the most exciting artists of her generation.

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JOYCE W CAIRNS RSA RSW Hon RBA MA(RCA)

Joyce W Cairns (b 1947) is one of the UK’s most significant artists. Based for many years in the village of Footdee, beside Aberdeen harbour, and now by the River Tay, Dundee, Cairns’ distinctive and humane work feels more relevant than ever in a “post-truth” world. Our complicity in world events and the need for personal reconciliation with the past are powerful themes throughout her work.

Cairns’ paintings, drawings and original prints are full of psychological intensity and emotional charge, tackling subjects of humanity, war and collective memory. She is a masterful draughtswoman, creating dreamlike, figurative compositions that reflect the complexity of human experience.

Cairns’ extraordinary body of work, including her War Tourist series, reveals her ability to convey the resilience of ordinary lives in the face of internal and external conflict. Inspired by German Art of the Weimar period including Max Beckmann, George Grosz and Otto Dix, Cairns’ uncompromising vision and acute sensitivity sets her apart.

Joyce Cairns RSA. RSW. Hon RBA. MA (RCA) studied painting at Grays School of Art, Aberdeen and the Royal College of Art, London.

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FIONNA CARLISLE Fionna Carlisle (b. 1954) lives between Edinburgh and the Island of Crete, an environment that infuses her work with colour, light and vitality. Inspired by people, flora and landscape, her paintings share a sense of bold exuberance and rhythmic intensity. Carlisle’s immediate response to her subjects through drawing is the foundation of her compositions.

“Few artists in Scotland have work that vibrates so much with colour and powerful brushwork, and that is in the country that gave birth to the Colourists. Fionna Carlisle has taken their traditions and loves and gone further with them - literally, to Greece. And beyond this, to a new realm of energetic paint.”

Tony Davidson, Director of Kilmorack Gallery

Carlisle was born in Wick in the far North of Scotland and studied at Edinburgh College of Art. She has worked and exhibited in the UK, Europe and the USA. 23

SARAH CARRINGTON Sarah Carrington (b. 1977) is well known for her evocative paintings of the Isle of Mull, Iona and the coastline around her native Edinburgh.

Carrington’s work draws the viewer into the landscape through an expansive range of marks, from exquisite foreground delicacy to bold movement in the distant sky. Layers of acrylics, emulsions and oils work alongside inks and chalk to create rich fields of weathered texture and translucent light that capture the shifting moods and spirit of the Northern coastline.

Carrington graduated from Edinburgh College of Art and makes regular journeys back to Scotland from her home and studio in Northern Ireland.

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SAM CARTMAN Sam Cartman is a Scottish landscape artist known for his bold paintings of wild Scotland, combined with echoes of human habitation and industry. Daring planes of colour, scratched and drawn marks define his dynamic and supremely balanced compositions. In the world of contemporary Scottish painting his work truly stands on its own.

“Sam Cartman’s paintings show the beauty of the natural world; hills, woods and streams, with reminders that people once inhabited these places. There might be a deserted road or an abandoned building. These are faded things, like a memory caught and then lost.

Cartman’s exquisite compositions, and his expanses of colour and texture take the paintings to a place that will not fade.”

Tony Davidson, Director of Kilmorack Gallery

Sam Cartman was born in Shropshire and attended Art School in the north of England.

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KIRSTIE COHEN Scottish artist Kirstie Cohen (b.

1963) is known for her dramatic and often turbulent landscape paintings.

These are created through the meticulous layering and manipulation of slow-drying oil paint that gives her work depth and richness. It is a method of working that brings intuitive decisions to each painting, anchored to forms of moor, mountain and sea – creating a world of feeling through abstraction.

“The hills, lochs, seas and skies are intentionally in a state of unresolved psychological flux; light and dark move around, tides rise and fall, and the flatness of a moor can also be the rolling of the sea… and the land is alive, her paintings are alive.”

Tony Davidson, Director, Kilmorack Gallery.

Cohen was born in Edinburgh and now lives and works in rural Inverness-shire. She studied at the Edinburgh College of Art and Glasgow School of Art. 29

PETER DAVIS Peter Davis (b. 1953) works in the fluid medium of watercolour to create “a microcosm of the natural world.” Based in Shetland, his paintings of the far North are more mindscape than landscape, reminiscent of the economy and grace of Chinese Art. The still centre of contemplation we experience in nature is distilled in Davis’ art.

“Sometimes very little is needed to capture everything. In Peter Davis’ hands watercolour takes on a new power.” Tony Davidson, Director, Kilmorack Gallery “The two extremes of stillness and flow and the myriad activity between the two are what make watercolour, for me, the most natural medium with which to depict the extremes of the Northern landscapes. I have painted this subject for more than 35 years and it continues to provide a source excitement and exploration.”

Peter Davis

Peter Davis was born in the North of England and has lived in Orkney and Shetland. His travels throughout Scotland and abroad fuel his paintings and process.

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HELEN DENERLEY HELEN DENERLEY is one of the UK’s leading wildlife artists, best known for the animals she sculpts from scrap metal. She has had many major exhibitions (including four solo shows at Kilmorack) and has large works in many public spaces throughout the UK, including Edinburgh’s ‘Dreaming Spires’ Giraffes at the top of Leith Walk, and international commissions in Japan, Hong Kong and South Georgia.

For Denerley, the creative process begins with meticulously observed drawing and ends with a metal sculpture pulsing with life and movement. This is not rendered in solid form but realised in negative spaces, filled with the spirit of the animal and the viewer’s imagination.

Denerley graduated from Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen in 1977.

Since then she has lived and worked from her studio on a remote hillside in Northeast Scotland.

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STEVE DILWORTH Steve Dilworth (b. 1949) is one of the UK’s most innovative artists.

From objects of an intimate to monumental works in bronze and stone, Dilworth’s use of found and once living materials has been breaking new ground since the late 1970s. Based on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides, his work begins with the raw energy of material. Drawn from the collective unconscious, the crafting of what is held within is just as important as the outer form, with no separation between the physical and metaphysical.

“I want to retrieve that moment of understanding, not by describing, but by making. Of course, I’ll fail, but in the chemistry of making another moment will appear. These objects are drawn from an internal landscape, of shifting sands.

Connections are constantly being discovered”. Steve Dilworth

Steve Dilworth was born in Yorkshire and studied sculpture at Maidstone College of Art. He is represented in collections in Europe, Asia, Australia and the USA, including the Richard Harris Collection, Chicago.

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KATE DOWNIE RSA

Born in the United States, Kate Downie RSA (b 1958) now lives and works in Edinburgh. Downie is inspired by “acts of engineering” and human construction “amidst the seas, mountains and the envelope of air; concrete, asphalt, steel. glass and plastic.” Her “edgescapes” explore tensions between natural and man-made environments, centuries of tradition, change and migration. She has worked extensively in Europe, the USA and China, reimagining Eastern and Western traditions of seeing in her art.

Downie’s assured, precise draftsmanship and eagerness to experiment with inks, watercolour, oils and printing techniques has continued to refine, invigorate and expand her practice.

Ever since living in Paris in the late 1980s Downie has “been exploring the concept of ‘La Place’: a point in the land where many roads meet,” finding the poetry in everyday life and new ways of seeing.

Kate Downie is represented in collections including the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Royal Scottish Academy, Aberdeen Art Gallery, the BBC and HM The Queen.

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ANNETTE EDGAR Annette Edgar is one of Scotland’s greatest exponents of the Colourist tradition, not just as a style but a way of life. Her love of people, places and the art of painting are in the DNA of her work. The adventure of travel is an endless source of inspiration and discovery. Edgar delights in expressive brushwork, sensual colour and contrasting form, bringing a sense of joy and erotic charge to her chosen subjects.

“Because I like to use saturated colour I find myself drawn to sunny places. Currently my three favourites are Tuscany, rural Spain and Los Angeles. Hot sunny places, for me, often trigger the beat of music in my head,” rhythms which Edgar skilfully conveys in her work.

Edgar graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1980. She exhibits regularly in Scotland at the RGI, SSA and VAS, throughout the UK and USA. 39

MARK EDWARDS “Enigmas and ironies abound in the work of Mark Edwards. It is a joy to lose yourself down labyrinthine pathways of possible narrative; suited figures, forest, snow and trains to unknown destinations.

It is an equal delight to marvel at Edwards’ remarkable techniques, all honed to make his paintings vibrate with colour, resolve in composition and twang with tension.”

Tony Davidson, Kilmorack Gallery Director Edwards began his current series of surrealist paintings, ‘The White Wood,’ in 2007. Throughout his career he has painted and illustrated book covers including works by Kingsley Amis, Beryl Bainbridge, Sue Townsend, Michael Morpugo, and Philip Pullman.

Mark Edwards was born in London where he studied art during the 1960’s. In 1974 he relocated to the far North of Scotland where he now lives and works.

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BETH ROBERTSON FIDDES Few artists are as attuned to the landscape of the West Highlands and Islands as Beth Robertson Fiddes.

Mountains, pools and waterfalls are etched into her memory; with each element of the landscape rendered as a tactile, felt sense that strikes a balance between realism and abstraction. Fiddes conveys the expansive scale and Romantic vision of Highland landscape.

“There is magnificence to Beth Robertson Fiddes’s work. She uses everything she has - texture, scale, colour, composition - to recall the grandeur and myth of the Scottish landscape. The result is remarkable.”

Tony Davidson, Kilmorack Gallery

Beth Robertson Fiddes was born in Tiree and grew up in the Highlands.

She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art and now lives and works near Ullapool.

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HENRY FRASER

photo credit: Jimmy Mack photography

Henry Fraser’s naïve treatment of the human figure is both compassionate and revelatory in its abstraction.

With none of the trappings of conventional portraiture, Fraser strips humanity back in pictorial, psychological and emotive terms.

The profound sensitivity of his paint handling, positioning of the figure and Expressionistic palette convey the joy, anguish and complexity of being human.

“When I start to paint, I go directly to the canvas. I have no sketches or photographs to refer to. I listen to music; sometimes to remove me from the conscious activity of painting and at other times to help me focus on what’s developing in front of me. I’m not at all interested in capturing the likeness of an individual or portraying the human figure accurately, but in conveying the mystery and transience of the human condition - making the invisible visible.”

Henry Fraser

Henry Fraser graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2001 (B.A. Honours Degree, Visual Communication) and exhibits throughout the UK. 45

ANDREA GEILE Andrea Geile’s large corten-steel sculptures are inspired by her research into botany and horticulture, uniquely combining the worlds of sculpture, architecture and plants.

Manufactured steel by nature is hard and flat, but in Geile’s hands it becomes a soft, dendritic organism, letting light through the structure.

The rusted patina of corten suggests organic processes of growth and decay, linked to the lifeblood of human beings.

Geile often integrates her sculptures very subtly into the plant life on a particular site, investigating the relationships between nature’s design and our built environment.

Andrea Geile was born and studied Visual Art in Hanover, Germany before moving to Edinburgh in 1996.

She has received awards from the RSA and Chelsea Flower Show and held residencies in Orkney, Germany, France and Australia.

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LOTTE GLOB Danish born ceramic artist Lotte Glob (b 1944) lives and works on her Sculpture Croft by Loch Eribol, surrounded by the rugged Northwest Highlands UNESCO Geopark. On long hikes into the mountains Glob gathers rocks and sediments which she combines with different clays, sculpting and firing them in a process “similar to the landscape’s volcanic origins.”

“To Lotte Glob the landscape is a living thing full of magic and reinvention. It is a place where a boulder may get up and walk off on stout sturdy legs. It is also a place of song and star-gazers. Glob takes inspiration and materials from here, and often offers them back as gifts to nature. The inspiration of her father (well-known archaeologist Peter Glob) is there too: the ancient peaty Tollund Man and the CoBrA artists.”

Tony Davidson, Kilmorack Gallery Director

Exhibiting internationally since 1965, Lotte Glob moved to the North West Highlands in 1968. Her work is represented in public collections including the Museum of Fine Art, Copenhagen, Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, Dundee Art Gallery and Museum, MacLaurin Gallery, Ayr and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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GAIL HARVEY

Nature is not static. There is always movement and wonder, especially on Coubal, an exposed hillside in Shetland where Gail Harvey (b 1954) has lived and worked for over twenty-five years. Harvey’s paintings respond directly to ever changing, elemental forces of nature that draw the eye to a distant point on the horizon or into the eye of a storm.

“I’d like my paintings to have enough presence and stillness to hold the viewer, as Coubal holds me, but for the play of paint to encourage movement of thought across, through and beyond the painting surface.” Gail Harvey

Harvey was born in Glasgow and studied at the Glasgow School of Art before moving to Shetland in 1988.

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CATHERINE IMHOF CARDINAL Catherine Imhof-Cardinal (b 1951) is a Swiss painter born in France who has lived near Aberdeen, Scotland, for over 40 years. Imhof-Cardinal tackles her compositions without preconception. Each work emerges gradually from a series of lines on the canvas; allowing the subject and composition to grow in an intuitive way. The result are paintings with emotional impact and a dreamlike recollection of landscape and people.

“For me, painting is a link with the outside world, connecting me with people living on other continents.

When I paint I can be in touch with events that affect fellow human beings around the world. I can create order in the inner turmoil some of these events provoke, and try to contribute positively by sharing and supporting inwardly in a nonmaterial, spiritual way through my work.”

Catherine Imhof-Cardinal

Catherine Imhof-Cardinal trained as a sculptor at the École des Beaux Arts Versailles and in Aix-en-Provence before dedicating herself to painting.

She has exhibited extensively in the UK, USA, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland and France.

53

JANNETTE KERR PRWA RSA

Jannette Kerr PPRWA RSA (Hon) (b. 1959) is a painter of wildness. She seeks out places where change is swift, powerful and where the sea boils.

The uncompromising nature of her work incorporates all the energy of Action Painting with the tangible sensations of wind-swept waves, salt spray and ocean swell. Kerr normally paints from her studios in Shetland or Somerset; but often seeks out even wilder and remoter experiences. In 2016 she was part of an art and science expedition to the Antarctic.

“My process of making paintings involves extremes and instabilities: peripheries and promontories - sites of instability and unknowing, places of rapid change and shifts both physically and meteorologically.” Janette Kerr

Janette Kerr was President of the Royal West of England Academy from 2011-2016, an Honorary Royal Academician and a visiting Research Fellow in Fine Art at the University of the West of England.

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LIZ KNOX Liz Knox is an artist of rare quality and immaculate technique. Colour, composition, texture and light are all used with a deftness that brings power to all the subjects she touches.

“The still life and outdoor works are my response to the subject on a particular occasion. Other work is more difficult to explain.

It’s to do with random thoughts, daydreams, reminiscences, the scattered disconnected ephemera that skips back and forth in the mind.

Visual imagery attracts me but the sensation from the source is the reason for the painting.” Liz Knox

Knox is a graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art (1971) where she studied under the tutorage of Sir Robin Philipson and David Michie.

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ALAN MACDONALD The work of Alan Macdonald (b.

1962) is instantly recognisable for its theatricality, humour and consummate skill. The marriage of old-master technique and Pop modernity create moments of unbridled delight and pathos.

Macdonald visually acknowledges his artistic heroes: Titian, Ingres, Goya or Van Dyke, then throws a grenade, mischievously subverting our expectations of how the female nude, portrait, self-portrait, landscape or history painting should behave.

“Few artists’ work absorbs us as much as the painting of Alan Macdonald. It is not just the many objects brought together that make us stare; half-forgotten things taken from classics and Caravaggio combined with the mundane ephemera of sweetshops, supermarkets and childhood remembrances. These great paintings remain with you even after you look away.”

Tony Davidson, Director, Kilmorack Gallery

Alan Macdonald was born in Malawi and graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee.

He spent his early career in London before relocating to Scotland. His work has an international following, held in collections throughout UK, Europe, Asia and North America.

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ALLAN MACDONALD

Allan MacDonald (b. 1965) is one of the UK’s most respected and accomplished landscape artists.

He transforms the way we see the Scottish landscape; not as a view, but as a living presence.

MacDonald’s masterful work in oils is anchored in sheer physicality, going out to face the elements in all weathers in pursuit of understanding and communion with nature.

spirituality and aspiration. We feel it in the human scale of Caspar David Fredrich’s ‘Monk by the Sea’, Canadian artist Tom Thomson’s sublime visions of Algonquin and in the illumination of vivid blue hope in MacDonald’s turbulent Highland skies.

This distinctly Northern Romantic tradition, seeking connection with the divine in nature, is invested with

Allan MacDonald has lived most of his life in Inverness-shire. He studied at the Edinburgh College of Art (BA Hons Drawing and Painting) and has exhibited throughout the UK. 61

JANE MACNEILL Jane MacNeill (b 1971) is best known for her otherworldly, finely worked paintings in oils and gold leaf. The apparent simplicity of her compositions, subtle use of colour, close tonality and rich surface quality give her work a profound feeling of interior stillness and compassion.

MacNeill’s work has developed through several phases. In its earliest period, she created haloed figures that hovered between dimensions like angels. After this MacNeill painted the birds around her rural Inverness studio. She only painted creatures she made eye contact with and presented them as if they were, like the angels, haloed. MacNeill’s latest work distils the landscape down to subtle vibrations of paint and energy.

Jane MacNeill is based outside Inverness and trained at Edinburgh College of Art. Her work is found in public collections such as the Wakefield Gallery, The Royal Scottish Academy and Edinburgh College of Art. 63

CHARLES MACQUEEN

RSW RGI

Charles MacQueen RSW RGI (b 1940) is a master of colour and composition, using textured layers of paint, gesso and mixed media to evoke the sensory experience of a place beyond representation.

MacQueen’s work is often based on travels; to Italy, France, the Greek Islands and Morocco, incorporating the temperature of colour, mirage-like shimmers of heat and architectural details as imaginative gateways. There’s an uncanny suspension of time in MacQueen’s Art. This, coupled with astonishing fluidity, conjures images of lived experience and memory out of the painted surface.

Charles MacQueen trained at Glasgow School of Art. An elected member of the Royal Glasgow Institute and Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, his work is represented in public, corporate and private collections worldwide.

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ALAN MCGOWAN Alan McGowan (b 1962) works directly from life with a magnificent command of anatomy, draughtsmanship and paint handling.

His understanding of the human figure goes far deeper into the collective psyche. McGowan’s paintings explore how the creative process reflects humanity. Most recently he has brought this experience and insight into new works in sculpture.

“Art is prefaced by hunger; it moves to meet a feeling inside. If the shallow world of advertising images, game shows and facile materialism was enough then we wouldn’t need art. But it isn’t and we do. The arts allow us to connect outside of ourselves to a larger reality. In my case through the works of Rubens, Leonardo, Bacon and Freud. It also, paradoxically, connects us inwards, towards our internal life.” Alan McGowan

Alan McGowan trained at Edinburgh College of Art. He has exhibited widely in the UK, Europe, the USA and South Korea. His work has featured at many national exhibitions of Contemporary Figurative Art including the Scottish Portrait Awards (2017), the BP Portrait exhibition and the Threadneedle Prize.

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JANET MELROSE RSW

Janet Melrose RSW (b. 1964) works in watercolour, acrylic and mixed media. Sometimes her subject is the wood next to her studio, the pond, birds in a tree, or a memory of a visit to Italy.

“To me they are always like simple haiku: they too are small poems that are hard to forget.”

Tony Davidson, Director of Kilmorack Gallery “I have always been interested in nature and the way our life is affected by it. I make drawings of plants, birds, animals and insects that live in the area I also occupy, acutely aware of the fragile balance in which we all exist.” Janet Melrose

Janet Melrose studied at Edinburgh College of Art and has exhibited in the UK and USA. 69

ILLONA MORRICE Illona Morrice (b 1954) works in many sculptural mediums – ceramics, bronze, and stone – in her quest to capture the spirit and humour of the people and animals that inspire her work. She is a fearless climber and kayaker and brings this tactile closeness to nature and curiosity to her work. Her creative process is one of constant exploration into fresh forms and glazes, and experimentation with new mediums and textures.

Morrice’s sculpture always embodies a powerful sense of balance and movement – and a delight in the primal energies of the natural world.

Illona Morrice was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. She began sculpting in her mother’s ceramic studio and has been exhibiting professionally since the age of 17. She moved to the UK in 1979 and now lives in Moray, Northern Scotland.

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ANN ORAM

Ann Oram RSW (b 1956) is always present in her surroundings, painting with an abundance of colour and energy. Her beautifully composed landscapes and still-lives often focus on the overlooked beauty and minute details found around her studio or on her travels. Oram is a grand tourer in spirit and keen observer of life, having spent many years living and working in Europe and India.

Oram describes her work in the context of the everyday, choosing to depict “the ordinary landscape

of Scotland. There are no heroic mountains or lochs; the views are about what I see most days and know very well.” Oram is a great observer of the seasons; the stark clarity and simplicity of winter and the profusion of wildflowers in meadows or her garden in the summer. Oram also finds inspiration inside where she paints muchloved objects using the balance of colour, line and form only a lifetime’s experience can bring.

Ann Oram was born in London and trained at Edinburgh College of Art. After her post-graduate year and Andrew Grant Scholarship to France and Italy, she returned to Edinburgh to lecture in painting at ECA. Her work appears in corporate and private collections throughout Britain and Ireland, USA, Singapore, New Zealand, Spain, Austria and the Netherlands.

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ROBERT POWELL

photo credit: Sylwia Kowalczyk

Robert Powell (b. 1985) is renowned for his incredibly detailed and scholarly paintings, prints, installations and sculpture. Powell’s unmistakable vision is darkly satirical, revealing humanity in all its perplexing intricacy, grandeur and folly. The socially critical and grotesque works of Hogarth, Bosch, Ensor, Goya and the work of popular Japanese Ukiyo-e artists of the Edo period (1615-1868) are some of Powell’s influences.

“Intelligent, mocking, fun and much more; Robert Powell has a unique artistic voice. His work occupies a place where art meets science and history. With his eye for minute detail and composition, and his head for arcane learning, Powell forces us to explore our past in order to understand our present. His work sits within a European tradition of dark humour executed with incredible flair and expression. “ Tony Davidson, Director of Kilmorack Gallery

Robert Powell is based in Edinburgh and trained at Edinburgh College of Art. He has exhibited in the UK, Canada and Japan, undertaken residencies in Japan and has received numerous awards including the SSA Deloitte Award (2015), the SSA Engramme Exchange (2013) and the RSA Benno Schotz Award (2011).

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CARINA PRIGMORE Carina Prigmore (b 1973) was born in Sweden and now lives in Scotland, surrounded by the Cairngorm mountains. Handling of paint comes naturally to Prigmore, and she delights in developing subtle yet energetic techniques that reflect the muted light and unexpected delicacy of the landscape.

Her depictions of the Cairngorms in winter have a distinctive edge of softness, seen in barren feathered branches, opaque mist and hues of blue-toned snow. Most of all they bring a sense of quietness, solitude and calm.

Carina Prigmore studied conservation biology at Aberdeen University. Her work has featured in the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation “Wildlife Artist of the Year” at the Mall Galleries, London; National Exhibition of Wildlife Art, Liverpool; Art and The Animal Kingdom, Bennington Centre for the Arts, Vermont, USA. 77

ANN WEGMULLER RSW RWS

Scottish artist Ann Wegmuller RSW RWS (b. 1941) is known for her bold use of colour and evocative compositions, often of the Scottish countryside. These always use a skilful degree of abstraction, helping in her quest to convey the feelings and memories of place, and letting us see a deeper magic that is always there within the land.

“Colour is very important to me. It is probably the subject of my paintings.

The painting itself starts from my feeling for a place and the colour is the mood. It is like music: different sounds are like different colours.

Each colour has its own beauty and strength but can be enhanced or toned down by another colour. The excitement for me comes from doing the unexpected with this.

To put down a loaded brush of cadmium red, then sharpen it with shapes of pale magenta, or paint some cool dark yellow and put beside it some warm pale blue instead of the other way around.”

Ann Wegmuller

Wegmuller was born in Gourock, near Glasgow. She was based in Zurich during the 1960s and now lives and works in Perthshire.

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IAN WESTACOTT Ian Westacott (b 1956) is a master printmaker using the same technique of copper plate etching as Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya and Degas.

Westacott works from life directly onto the etching plate, building up the image back in the studio. “I’m obsessed with line,” he says, “it’s the clarity and transparency of the etched line which makes drawing come alive for me”.

What shines through in every beautifully crafted line is Westacott’s love of his chosen subjects and his technical proficiency. His images of trees are meticulously researched portraits of individuals. They are witnesses to history, a conduit between earth and sky and ancient guardians of stories, memories and ghosts.

Ian Westacott was born in Australia and studied Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts. He has exhibited in the UK, France and Australia, including shows at the Australian Galleries and William Mora Gallery in Melbourne and The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.

81

PETER WHITE Peter White (b. 1959) is a Scottish artist known for his almost geologically-textured paintings of apparently simple subjects – a head, boat, book or bowl. Peter White elevates these hollow things into something powerful. They become vessels which contain a life-force, or a memory of the life which once existed in them.

White has developed his technique over many years, now using a mixture of oil, acrylic and wax to create these works which can be monumental or the scale of personal icons.

Peter White was born in Ayrshire, studied at the Edinburgh Collage of Art, and since the mid-1990s has lived and worked from the North West of Scotland.

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CHRISTINE WOODSIDE RSW RGI

Scottish artist Christine Woodside RGI RSW (b. 1946) is inspired by the landscape and wildlife around her studio in rural Fife, her whippet Jinky, fantailed doves (which she bred) and travels throughout the world.

Her richly-textured paintings skilfully combine oil, watercolour, pastel and layers of handmade Japanese paper to create works that burst off the canvas with joyous life.

Christine Woodside trained at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen in the 1960s and is an elected member of the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Art. She exhibits regularly in Edinburgh and London.

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Artist List

A

D

James Newton Adams, 1

Peter Davis, 31 Helen Denerley, 33

B

Steve Dilworth, 35

Paul Barnes, 3

Kate Downie RSA, 37

Shona Barr, 5 Eduard Bersudsky, 7

E

Paul Bloomer, 9

Annette Edgar, 39

Francis Boag

Mark Edwards, 41

Mary Bourne, 11 Eoghan Bridge, 13 Laurence Broderick

F

Colin Brown, 15

Helen Fay

Ruth Brownlee, 17

Beth Robertson Fiddes, 43 Henry Fraser, 45

C Patricia Cain, 19

G

Joyce W Cairns, 21

Andrea Geille, 47

Fionna Carlisle, 23 Sarah Carrington, 25

Lotte Glob, 49

Sam Cartman, 27 Kirstie Cohen, 29

H Claire Harkess Gail Harvey, 51 Carloine Hunter

I

O

Catherine Imhof-Cardinal, 53

Ann Oram, 73

J

P

John Johnstone

Robert Powell, 75 Carina Prigmore, 77

K Janette Kerr, 55

S

Liz Knox, 57

Wendy Sutherland

L

T

Gerald Laing

Hock-Aun Teh

Marian Leven RSA RSW W M

Jennifer Watt

Carolynda Macdoanld

Ann Wegmuller RSW, 79

Alan Macdonald, 59 Allan MacDonald, 61

Ian Westacott, 81

Madeline MacKay

Christopher Wood RSW

Will Maclean

Christine Woodside RSW RGI, 85 George Wyllie

Jane MacNeill, 63 Charles MacQueen RSW, 65 Sian MacQueen RSW Sally Matthews Robert McAulay Alan McGowan, 67 Lynn McGregor RSW Janet Melrose RSW, 69 Illona Morrice, 71

Peter White, 83