6 October to 4 November 2018
Private View – Friday 5 October, 6-8pm
Our next exhibition features three artists whose work has a common thread; a fascination and understanding of texture, colour and form. The work of Simon Laurie, Jock MacInnes and Astrid Trügg draws inspiration from many sources, but the St Ives artists Ben Nicholson, Alfred Wallis, Wilhelmina Barns Graham and Terry Frost as well as William Scott, Braque and Morandi have all had a lasting influence.
Simon Laurie’s work, whether his stylised still life, abstract landscapes or simplistic heads, has a natural rhythm, skilfully balancing shapes, colour and texture. Multiple layers of paint are drawn and scratched into, producing tactile, textured surfaces punctuated by the simplified shapes of the everyday objects in his still lifes, hedgerows and fields in the landscapes and facial features of his small heads.
Jock MacInnes, like Simon, graduated from Glasgow School of Art and taught there for a number of years before pursuing his own painting career. Still life and landscape are the main focus of Jock’s work with the sights and sounds of the West Coast of Scotland and the harbours and villages around Collioure in the South of France featuring strongly. Texture again is an important part of Jock’s work, painting onto gesso-prepared boards and canvases and then scratching and scraping away the layers to leave a natural, weathered feel.
Astrid Trügg studied at Utrecht School of Art and Leith School of Art, and now lives in North Berwick and works from her studio in Edinburgh. Again texture, form and colour are key building blocks in Astrid’s work. Working into the many layers of gesso and paint produces interesting textures onto which antique newspaper collage adds a feeling of nostalgia. The everyday objects that are carefully arranged in Astrid’s still life pieces appear simplified, the perspective altered but the resulting forms balance perfectly with her vibrant and harmonious choices of colour.
Although all three artists employ similar techniques and share similar artistic influences each has evolved their own instantly recognisable, idiosyncratic style.
