Tuesday 21 June 2011

Henley's in The Herald...

I was chuffed last weekend to get a mention in The Herald newspaper's galleries page. Jan Patience included The Bohun Gallery's summer exhibition in the round-up of who's showing what and where. 



Summer Boathouse, oil on linen, 24"x24", currently on show at The Bohun Gallery, Henley-on-Thames

Here's what Jan wrote about Bohun:

MANY small private galleries in the south of England exhibit work by leading Scottish painters and while these artists are not exactly prophets without honour in their own land, it’s clear that they are rated very highly by those responsible for the hanging.
The Bohun Gallery in Henley-on-Thames is one such gallery. Its associate director, Joanna Cartwright points out this year alone, they have had a show by George Donald, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and Crawfurd Adamson.
Now, for their summer exhibition, they have brought together a clutch of fine Scottish artists, including Annette Edgar, Elizabeth Blackadder, Shona Barr, Marj Bond, James McDonald, Jennifer McRae and June Redfern.  They are in fine company, alongside the likes of Maggie Hambling, Mary Fedden and Julian Trevelyan. Fedden’s delightful oil painting Over the Sea to Skye reveals a mature artist whose creative fire shows no sign of dimming. 
Glasgow-based Annette Edgar is another mature artist who is making magic with a paintbrush lately. Her new work, such as Summer Boathouse, is ablaze with colour and purpose, as well as a poetic sense of place.
The Bohun Gallery’s mixed summer exhibition presents a rare opportunity to see such an well-regarded group of artists under one roof. With a wide variety of paintings, watercolours and prints produced over the last three decades in a range of genres, the exhibition offers a strong overview of some of the best of British art.
Gallery director Pat Jordan Evans says: “One of the pleasures of a show like this is the chance to experience the sheer range of approaches by British professional artists. The broad spectrum of work ensures that there is something here to appeal to every taste, which has made our summer exhibition a favourite with gallery regulars.”

Friday 17 June 2011

Not so Still Life

My desk in the studio

My studio chair

A busy day at home - it's always a busy day at home and in my head - but I have a photographer and journalist coming this morning from Scotland on Sunday to do a piece on my house and studio.
Off to get the make-up on...

Monday 6 June 2011

Rosann's Place

I always tell my friend Rosann that wherever she lives, be it Italy or Dennistoun, there is a feeling of 'Rosann's village' about it.

Rosann's Place, oil on linen, 61x71cm, £2750


This is my response to that phenomenon.
Rosann Cherubini is a talented sculptor and a really good friend. This painting is currently on show and for sale at the Catto Gallery on Hampstead.
To find out more see:
www.catto.co.uk

Thursday 2 June 2011

Clyde Connections

I was asked to contribute to Homes & Interiors Scotland magazine last year around the time The River Runs Through It exhibition took place in Glasgow's Kelvingrove.


The feature was called I Love This and the format is that someone is asked to talk about a place that they love and why.


I chose the River Clyde because it has flowed through my life in many ways. Here's what I wrote:


I love this...
The Riverside, Glasgow

Annette Edgar lives and works in her native Glasgow. She studied painting at Glasgow School of Art in the late 1970s and her distinctive brightly
coloured palette belies an underlying darkness. She is one of 25 artists exhibiting at Kelvingrove in Glasgow, from November 12 to January 30, 2011, as part of The River Runs Through It, a fundraising exhibition in aid of the Riverside Museum Appeal.


www.annetteedgar.net

Most classrooms in Glasgow in the 1950s and 1960s had a map of the River Clyde, so as a child I was always conscious of the river. It was everywhere you looked. 


The top deck of a bus was one of the best places to spot boats and cranes, which looked like prehistoric monsters moving slowly and silently in the sky. 


Grey was the predominant colour, and the weeping skies added a mournful quality to most days. Eventually, the sky would turn blue and the sun would shine silver and gold on the river, with the promise of excitement and possibilities.


When I was four, my Uncle Robert took me on to a ship he was working on. The boat was in dock; but, standing on the pier, looking at the height of the gangway, I was terrified. Once on board (wearing a sailor’s hat), I was enthralled. Unfamiliar smells and sounds abounded. Wet rope. Oil. Saltiness. Men shouting. Clashing and bashing. Horns sounding. Bells ringing. 


At that point, I fell in love with the Clyde.


Light reflections and shapes of the river and sea have been an ongoing inspiration in my painting. 


While I remember the Clyde as being silvery grey, I recall the people who worked at the yards being the same colour. They worked long and hard and got dirty in the process. 


Now, a new generation works in a different way in post-industrial Glasgow, but I hope there is room for continuation and possible expansion of shipbuilding.


Driving into Glasgow via the Kingston Bridge, it’s incredible to see the spread of changes that have occurred in the last few decades. It is – and always has been – a great river. 


When other things become a memory, it will still be there. It lives.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

The Riverside and Sundry Tributaries

Last year, I was asked to take part in a major exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow called The River Runs Through It.
It was organised by the artist Charles Jamieson and arts journalist Jan Patience. They asked around 30 artists at various stages of their respective careers to respond to the new transport museum being built on the site of the old Pointhouse shipyard on the banks of the Clyde.
This spectacular building designed by the famous architect Zaha Hadid, has been called 'Glasgow's Guggenheim' and it opens to the public on June 21.
Here's a selection of work which I made for The River Runs Through It.

Last Ferry

Clydeside Brightsparks

Fish 'n ships

River River

Hearts in Tangleweed

Take A Punt to Henley-on-Thames...

Summer Boathouse, oil on linen, 24X24in

Lerici Shore, oil on linen, 28X32in


I have just sent work down to Bohun Gallery in Henley-on-Thames for their Contemporary & Modern British Painting summer exhibition.
I'm in good company. They are showing work byMary Fedden, Julian Trevelyan, Jennifer McRae and Maggi Hambling, to name just a few.
The exhibition opens on June 14 and lasts until August 13.
www.bohungallery.co.uk