REBECCA WESTGUARD Pencil and Ink Life Studies 4 - 28 April 2018
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Pencil and Ink Life Studies A Conversation in Detail My subject is alive and breathes …the challenge of responding to the model and the subtle but essential differences within a day’s sitting captivate my attention. For me, drawing is a conversation with detail. Once complete, each piece evokes a memory of the day’s experience, intrinsically related to a sitter’s physical and emotional well-being. This exhibition includes an offering of quick studies. More than ever, works such as an Anne-Florence address my perspective as a female artist. Today I’m a mother of two, when I see my most recent studies I see not just the folds of skin and fluidity of line I’m fascinated with - I see my baby daughter playing on the studio floor or even my two year old asleep in my arms as I draw from a model …he watches his mother draw and has scribbled his first life drawing of feet in these past few months. All this at a time when we celebrate 100 years of women having had the vote. It makes me realise how difficult it has been for the women before me to sustain their creativity amongst the crumpled and sucked paper of young family life. How much I have to learn and most importantly how much I am responsible to teach. How a drawing can at once hide all of the challenges of family life but make one ever so more determined. The complexity and discipline presented in drawing the human form, such as the challenges within composition, proportion, developing a multitude of poses or relationships within male and female diptychs will always drive me to create. Sittings may reference historical contextual influences, personal reflection and environmental responses, or exposure to current political or social interest. Rebecca Westguard, 2018
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Asleep in the Afternoon, Morag, 2018 black pencil on handmade Himalayan paper 83cm x 60cm ÂŁ2,400
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Madeline Resting by the Window, 2018 black pencil on handmade Himalayan paper 91 x 100.3 cms ÂŁ3,500
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Sleeping Sonya, Study One, 2018 pencil on canvas 51 x 56 x 2.5 cms £620
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Sleeping Sonya, Study Two, 2018 pencil on canvas 51 x 56 x 2.5 cms £620
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Madeline, 2018 black pencil on handmade Himalayan paper 60 x 41.5 cms ÂŁ1200 14
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Anne-Florence, Study One, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 33.4 x 24.3 cms ÂŁ330
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Anne-Florence, Study Three, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 33 x 24.3cms £330 18
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Anne-Florence, Study Four, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 32.8 x 24.3 cms £330 21
Anne-Florence, Study Seven, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 33.3 x 24.3 cms ÂŁ330 22
Anne-Florence, Study Six, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 29 x 24.3 cms £230 23
Mark Curled, Hand on Shoulder, Hand on Head, 2018 pencil drawing on canvas 30.5 x 30.5 cms ÂŁ420 24
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Mark, Study Four, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 33 x 24.3 cms £330 26
Mark, Study Five, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 33.4 x 24.3 cms ÂŁ230 27
Anne-Florence, Study Nine, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 29.8 x 23.7 cms ÂŁ330
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Anne-Florence, Study Eight, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 32 x 24.3 cms ÂŁ330
Anne-Florence, Study Two, 2018 black pencil on Japanese Toh paper 24.3 x 32.9 cms ÂŁ330 31
Jenny, Study One, 2018 black Indian Ink on watercolour paper 21.2 x 29.2 cms £330 32
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Jeny, Quick Study Two, 2018 black Indian Ink on watercolour paper 18.8 x 15.8 cms £270 34
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Jenny, Quick Study Four, 2018 black Indian Ink on watercolour paper 18.5 x 15.5 cms £270 36
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Mark, Study Two, 2018 black Indian Ink on watercolour paper 25.1 x 30.7 cms £330
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Jenny, Sketch, 2018 Black Indian ink on Watercolour paper 17.1 x 14.4 cms ÂŁ230 40
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Rebecca
Westguard
Born in 1979 in Kent, Rebecca Westguard lived in West Sussex before moving to the North East of Scotland at the age of nine. She studied at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, where under the tuition of influential Joyce W.Cairns she was able to explore her admiration and fascination of the human form. ‘With a stubbornness of wanting to know, a good life drawing I often get comfortably lost in. I navigate my way around the drawing until the form emerges with a process of transparency…with a kind of incessant structural mapping. So that in effect, there is evidence of my synthesis of thought.’ Trained as a painter, inspired by Florentine travels and her time spent at Hospitalfield House - Rebecca has concentrated her entire practice on the traditions of studying from life. Since graduating from art school she has furthered her knowledge of art history and culture with one and two month travels through New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya, Malaysia and Venice. A month’s selfstudy trip to Paris in 2012 and 2013 entailed newly found admiration and discovery of the beautiful Camille Claudel. As well as work by Soutine, Rodin, Bonnard, Giacometti, Bouguereau’s, Picasso’s, Erhart and so many more.
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Rebecca received the John Kinross Scholarship on graduation in 2002 and has exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London on two occasions. A prize winner at the National Open Art Competition & Aberdeen Artist Society, she has established and defined an inherent individual drawing style, with an innate sense of respect for the time-honoured tradition of life drawing Whilst maintaining her studio practice, Rebecca has taught drawing at Gray’s School of Art since 2005 and also coordinates the Short Course Provision. She established and developed the Hospitalfield Trusts Masterclass Programme 2009 - 12 and works as a freelance artist teaching life drawing and portfolio building. She continues to offer masterclasses in her discipline.
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Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition:
Rebecca Westguard
Pencil and Ink Life Studies 4 - 28 April 2018 Photography Š Rebecca Westguard All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.
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