Land and Sea 2020
Jim Dunbar PRSW RWS RGI, Neal Greig ARUA, Andy Heald, David E Johnston RSW & Jayne Stokes SSA
4 April to 3 May
Due to the developing situation with the Covid-19 virus we have decided to temporarily close the gallery until further notice.
All images for the previous exhibition, “Take Five” and the current “Land & Sea”, are available to view online.
If you would like to purchase, view or require any further information please get in touch at any time and we will do our very best to help.
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Keep safe all!
Our next exhibition focuses on land and seascapes and the very different interpretations by five outstanding artists.
Jim Dunbar studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee and then taught for a number of years at schools in his home county of Angus. He retired from teaching in 1999 and has painted full time ever since. Jim is an elected member of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS), Royal Glasgow Institute (RGI) and the Royal Scottish Society of painters in Watercolour (RSW) where he is currently President. Representational in style, Jim tends to concentrate on places, objects and people that have a strong connection to him – friends, collected objects or familiar places. His paintings in this exhibition feature the landscapes around his home in Angus. Rarely using photographs, Jim creates numerous studies of his subjects to refer to when creating the final piece.
Neal Greig, born in Belfast, studied at Edinburgh College of Art and now lives in Glaslough, County Monaghan. He has received numerous awards including the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Award from the Jackson Pollock Foundation, New York. More recently, in 2018, Neal was Elected to Royal Ulster Academy. Neal’s land and seascapes of the wild and rugged Atlantic coast of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland are brimming with the organic colours of nature from the splashes of greens, pinks and oranges of the lichens and grasses on the clifftops to the deep blues of the ocean and sky. Painting en plein air, his spontaneous brushstrokes are applied expressively with the confidence of an assured artist.
Andy Heald has been exploring landscapes across Scotland for over two decades. Andy often paints en plein air and begins by using acrylic, sand, clay, plants and emulsion. He then creates the finished work by excavating the canvas, the earlier media scratched and scrubbed off with pencils to create the final, abstract pieces. When painting he is drawn to the ever-changing appearances of our shared environment and attempts to capture these fleeting moments and elements. His primary influence is the spontaneity of nature – the inseparable response to sea, cloud, sun, season and weather. Andy attempts to reflect these fresh interactions by painting rapidly; the paint and media driven, splashed, scrubbed or dripped over the canvas in an attempt to capture the raw experiences of nature.
We are delighted to welcome David E Johnston to exhibit here for the first time. David, based in the Mearns in the North East of Scotland, is a self taught landscape artist. Working almost exclusively in watercolours he is inspired by the Mearns land and seascapes close to his home. Working from a combination of sketches, images and visual memory, he tries to get as close as possible to the original experience of being in the landscape in order to create a sense of place. David has had several one man exhibitions and has participated in numerous group shows. He was elected member of the RSW in 2017.
As with all these small group exhibitions I want to include a variety of styles to try and explore how different artists approach a similar subject. Jayne Stokes work is quite unique. Jayne graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1996 and has worked as a full time artist ever since. “My work aims to show the passage of time across the landscape and to explore our relationship with it.” In doing this Jayne incorporates “found objects” finding that this not only helps to create a sense of place and connect the viewer with the original landscape but also helps the viewer to contemplate environmental and sustainability issues.
“The environment and sustainablity are important issues to me personally and increasingly something that none of us can ignore. This also feeds into my use of mixed media. My works is rarely made from only from virgin materials. It comes from things that are remade or recyled, or changed and repurposed. That is as important to the work as the messages and stories about the places I visit and document. I hope to remind people of the importance of stopping and appreciating what is around us.”
I hope you enjoy browsing the art work on line. Please do not hestitate contact us if you would like any further information or would like to reserve one of the pieces.