Title: Hide & Seek
Size: 13cm x 23cm
Medium: Acrylic on Card

About the Artist


The art of Fife based, Scottish artist Reinhard Behrens inhabits a mythical world of snow and ice, of eastern mystery, and of found objects and ideas which transcend time and place.

Born in Germany 1951

1971 – 78         Hamburg College of Art

1979 – 80         German Academic Exchange Grant for Post graduate Course in Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art

1982 – 84        Part-time Lecturer Edinburgh College of Art

1986                   Full-time Lecturer Grays School of Art, Aberdeen

1989 – 92         President of Society of Scottish Artists

1995 -                 Lecturer, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design

Since 1987        Lives and works in Pittenweem, Fife

Awards

1980                   Andrew Grant Major Award, Edinburgh College of Art

1981 & 1986    Educational Institute of Scotland Award (SSA & RSA)

1983                  Benno Schotz Award

1985                  IBM Award (SSA)

1987                  Scottish Arts Council Major Bursary

1991                   Paisley Drawing Biennale

1998                  Noble Grossart Painting Prize

2011                   Creative Scotland Bursary

Solo Exhibitions

1982                   Edinburgh College of Art   Henderson’s Gallery, Edinburgh

1984                   Glasgow School of Art    Printmaker’s Workshop, Edinburgh

1985                   Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling

1986                   An Lanntair Gallery, Stornoway     Artspace Gallery, Aberdeen

1987                   McLaurin Art Gallery, Ayr    Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

1988                   Seagate Gallery, Dundee      Pier Arts Centre, Orkney

1989                   Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

1991                   Barrack Street Museum, Dundee

1992                   Galerie Gehring, Frankfurt      Aberdeen Art Gallery

1993                   St. Andrews Festival, University of St. Andrews   Open Eye Gallery

1996                   Arts in Fife Bus Tour,

Campo Sant Chapel, Ghent

Crawford Arts Centre, St. Andrews

Galerie Claude Andre, Brussels

1997                   Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery

1999                   Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow

2000                   Pittenweem Arts Festival

2004                   Byre Theatre, St. Andrews

2005                   Methil Heritage Centre, Fife

2006                  Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen

Bonhoga Gallery, Shetland

2008                  Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

43 Years of Expeditions into Naboland

In 1975 when I was working as a draughtsman for the German Archaeological Institute in Turkey on the site of historical Pergamon and suffering from the ill effects of a mild sun stroke I chanced upon a newspaper that reported a collision between a Turkish submarine and a Swedish cargo ship. The photographs reminded me of a toy submarine that I had found the previous year on the German North Sea coast. The only word in that Turkish newspaper that I could read was the name of the damaged ship: NABOLAND.

My feaverish condition inspired me to combine this name with the image of my found toy : In years to come my little tin submarine would explore the unknown continent of “Naboland”. Like the archaeologists around me I would use found objects as proof of the existence of Naboland.

My move to Scotland in 1979 to take up a post graduate course in Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art gave me access to the rich visual resources of the former British Empire and the explorations of the Edwardian era in particular. My joining of the Edinburgh University Mountaineering Club made it easy to feel like a member of Scott’s desperate party struggling for the South Pole and to explore the wilderness of the Scottish countryside through the goggles of the little tin mariner battling through the white outs of the Cairngorm plateau.

The ready sense of humour and appreciation of oblique perspectives that I encountered in Scotland was not a small element in the growing success of my artistic vision that has sustained me and over the last four decades I expanded my original “Naboland the North” chapter by the following regions of my parallel world:

Naboland – The Origins of Golf

Naboland – Across the Desert

Naboland – The Last Yeti

Naboland – The Italian visits

Naboland – A Flemish Excursion

Naboland – The Viking Connection

All these manifestations of “Naboland” have taken the form of drawings, paintings, prints and installations. For the last 10 years I have been working on the creation of  a brief animation entitled “Naboland News” that will, in it’s Pathe News documentary style give final evidence of the existence of NABOLAND.