Trust This Journey, oil on canvas, 120 x 110cm, 2015-16

I paint with intent, with a working theme in mind that expands and evolves as the work continues.  When mark-making I use memory and feeling merged and fused with conscious forms.  I usually work on a few pieces at any one time in a variety of scale, oscillating between canvas on the wall or easel, pieces on the floor and sketchbooks on the table.  I like the physicality of painting, of mark-making.  I enjoy the dialogue between pieces when placed next to each other by accident or intentionally and the thoughts and ideas that protrude from this.

This Island This Edge, ink & gouache on paper, 74 x 57cm, 2015

My recent work focuses on death, loss and transition.  I have been exploring this by creating something that I destroy to then create something new.  This could be a painting that I cut up to use the pieces as stencils on another painting, creating sections within it that are ‘missing’ but are making up a whole.  I am exhibiting a piece from this body of work at the international festival of contemporary art, Cupar Arts Festival, as an invited artist for the LIMINAL group exhibition from 18th – 25th June.

Missing 2, ink on canvas, 120 x 100cm, 2016

In my solo exhibition “Interconnections” at the Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries in 2015 I was exploring human relationship to nature through childhood memory, our desire to reconnect coupled with our distance from it.  For the exhibition I undertook a residency on the Isle of Eigg with The Bothy Project for which I am doing a talk at The Stove, the artist-led organisation and multi-purpose arts venue, in Dumfries on 23rd June.

Installation views of “Interconnections” 2015

Other exhibitions include “Inscapes”, a solo exhibition at &Collective Gallery in Bridge of Allen earlier this year,  “Detritus & Other Stories” solo exhibition at Iota Gallery in Glasgow in 2014, D&G Out group exhibition at James Harvey Gallery in London 2014, Visual Arts Award Restrospective Exhibition at the John Gray Centre in Haddington 2013.   I am also currently Chair of Upland, a new and ambitious visual art and craft development organisation in Dumfries & Galloway.

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I am currently based in the North of Iceland in a remote town called Olafsfjordur where I have been living and working for five months as artist in residence with two separate organisations: Nes and Listhus.

Prior to this I have spent a large amount of time in residency programmes including an expedition around the Northern Isles of Scotland with the Clipperton Project and working with the Bothy Project on two different projects. I have been selected for numerous artist in residence programmes this year which include Lyth Arts Centre in Wick, Cove Park, Cill Rialaig in Ireland and also one of 10 artists globally to be selected for the annual expedition around the archipelago of Svalbard with the Arctic Circle Organisation this coming October.

When I am back in Scotland I have a studio in Dundee where I work full time as an artist and exhibit my work locally and internationally. I have exhibitions scheduled for this year including two in Iceland, Grampian Arts Trust Solo show, John Muir show and ‘Just Landed’ exhibition at An Talla Solais, Ullapool from the 25th of March to the 1st of May.

My process in my visual art work is very much based place based. I tend to work in various mediums mixing them together and creating layers and textures responding to the land around me.
My drawings are large scale, gestural, and sweeping, in imitation of the landforms themselves. My prints are layered and tactile, responding not only to the land-forms but the textual rock surfaces as well. As my work has developed, it is the internalised grandeur of the landforms that take precedence. My photographs highlight the bareness and hostility of these wild landscapes that are exposed to the elements on the edges of the land.

I hope my work can serve as records of landscapes in flux, honoring the transition of them and inspiring our global community to take action for the future. By producing my art work I hope it will give people a chance to connect with that landscape and respect the nature that is so wild around us, to then cultivate a deeper understanding and inspire others to make a difference.

My future plans are creating larger work produced from my time spent in Iceland and all of the inspiration I have gathered here, preparing my work for upcoming exhibitions and getting organized for my largest project to date: my upcoming trip to the High Arctic this October.
I have been invited among a select group of artists and scientists worldwide to participate in The Arctic Circle Residency Programme in October 2016 for three weeks around the remote and northern Archipelago of Svalbard. The other residents and I will sail together on an ice class barkentine tallship explore Svalbard, just ten degrees from the North Pole, creating, collaborating, observing and documenting as we go.
This residency is incredibly important to me as it is in Svalbard where the effects of progressive climate change are the most apparent and where wildlife and the sea ice is significantly under threat. It is a place of wonder yet fragility and I find it important for my practice to record the shifting of the landscapes and the effects that global warming is inflicting on the Arctic.

I aim to record, document, and build up a large body of new drawings/ paintings, prints and photographs all made on the voyage through the Arctic and all directly connected to the place and what I observe whilst on the expedition. I hope to instill love for the landscapes in people so they too can be inspired to conserve this place that is significant to our future as a whole. I am currently raising funds for my project so if you would like to back my trip and receive art work made in Svalbard in return please click this link.

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Berlin based artist Anne Bengard challenges the viewer to question their preconceptions within her watercolour portraiture. We love the colour, expression, and imagination in these pieces.

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A call for entries has been announced for the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize. The opportunity is open to all UK painters over 18. Works are selected anonymously by an independent jury.

The winner will receive a grand prize of £25,000, with a further four awards of £2,500 going to the runner ups. An additional prize of £2,016 will be awarded to the winner of the Visitor’s Choice award, voted for by the public during the exhibition.

Please read the entry criteria and rules here. An entry fee of £30 applies and all submissions are to be made online here.

Deadline: 9 November

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Montmartre Serie (Paris) – Watercolour paintings by Bordeaux based French artist Nicolas Jolly.

See more from Nicolas on Central Station here.

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Celebrating the best of international contemporary art practice, the annual RSA Open Exhibition has a long history of over 180 years. The exhibition in the RSA’s Lower Galleries showcases a wide range of small and medium sized works (max. 80cm in any direction) selected through open submission and includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, electronic media and photographs.

The RSA Open showcases nearly 400 artworks each year and incorporates the ever-popular Own Art scheme. Find out more about Own Art on Central Station here.

There is a small entry fee and all artists will need to register and complete the online application process at www.regroyalscottishacademy.org.

For more information, please see the guidelines and FAQs online.

Deadline: 18 October

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Frida Kahlo

Drawings by Mexico City based freelance illustrator Jimena Moreno.

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Town on a Hill

Drawings by recent DJCAD graduate Lotte Fisher.

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Paintings by visual artist and Glasgow School of Art graduate Eleanor Carlingford.

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Joanne Dawson is a final year student of the BA(hons) Painting and Printmaking course at The Glasgow School of Art, graduating from the School of Fine Art a year after the fire of the Mackintosh Building. She is currently working up to the 2015 Degree Show using a variety of video, sculpture, screen-print and installation. She tells us more about what this year’s graduating Painting & Printmaking students have planned.

47 graduates from the Glasgow School of Art Painting and Printmaking course will exhibit their work in London at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane on the 2 – 6 July, as part of The Free Range Show. With the destruction of the Mackintosh Building, we lost a valuable platform for showcasing the culmination of four years hard work. We were in third year during the fire, so our work was not personally damaged, but we worked very closely with graduate students during that time, and we know how much it affected them along with the following repercussion that impacted ourselves in our final year. ALL YOU CAN EAT is the perfect opportunity for us to take our work beyond Glasgow and to exhibit to a wide new audience in a location central to London’s art scene.

Image of Rosie Swan by Ewan McCaffrey

Image of Nathan Cook by Ewan McCaffrey

ALL YOU CAN EAT is more than a painting show. We are an eclectic group and we will be running community workshops, performances, poetry readings and other events throughout the week in London. There is very little restriction on what will come out of the show, however we want to project how strong we have all been as a year together. We initiated this project entirely off our own back, and have been fundraising ourselves over the past year. With huge support and with much gratitude, our Kickstarter raised £3000 in just over a week (here is a link with a video by Gary Zhang). £3,000 is only half of the full cost. If we do not reach our target the show must and will go on. The cogs for potential resolutions to a lack of funding are already in motion. We are trying to supplement our funding through other avenues, writing proposals to different arts charities, throwing club nights, events, and bake sales.

After the funding is fully realised our largest challenge will be safely delivering, curating and installing the best possible show. The event, in the Old Truman Brewery in London, takes place between 2 – 6 July, a fortnight after the official Fine Art degree show in Glasgow will be held in Tontine House, off Trongate Cross in Merchant City from 13 – 20 June. The building surrounds a public art project of Douglas Gordon – his EMPIRE sign.

Image of Jude Hagan by Ewan McCaffrey

Image of Lewis Prosser by Ewan McCaffrey

Image of Jessie Whiteley by Ewan McCaffrey

You can follow our Instagram account here @gsa_painting with regular updates throughout our degree show and lead up to ALL YOU CAN EAT Graduate show. Preview students’ work on The Free Range Portfolio site here. Information will also be posted on The Glasgow School of Art’s website about our upcoming Fine Art Degree Show in the new Tontine Building.

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