duncan shanks rsa rsw rgi seasons and storms
roger billcliffe gallery
duncan shanks rsa rsw rgi seasons and storms june 20th - august 25th, 2015
roger billcliffe gallery 134 Blythswood Street Glasgow G2 4EL
Passing Storm mixed media, 22cm x 62cm
Summer Day mixed media, 22cm x 20cm
I’m often asked ‘Who is the best painter in Scotland today”. Or even ‘Who is your favourite painter?’
Both questions are difficult to answer, partly because it would be invidious – if not dangerous – to highlight just one of the artists we represent. But if I were to compile a private list that might answer both questions then Duncan Shanks would definitely be there. And I know that that all of our other artists would agree.
I’ve shown Duncan’s work for nearly forty years, first at The Fine Art Society and from 1992 here in my own gallery. His colour and dynamic compositions have always attracted me. He paints landscape with an emotional commitment which points out to us the beauty, the power and grandeur of the so-called ‘lowland’ hills, the moors and glens of the Clyde Valley where he has lived for nigh on fifty years. In all weathers he can be found on Tinto or its neighbours making the sketches that he transforms over time into visceral paintings in the studio.
Duncan has donated a large selection of his sketchbooks to the Hunterian Art Gallery at Glasgow University, but here in the Billcliffe Gallery we have a group of his paintings, made over the last twenty years or so, that are the fruit of those sketchbooks.
For me they more than justify Duncan’s reputation as one of Scotland’s leading painters, one of the last exponents of a tradition of painting in the west of Scotland that can be traced back to the Glasgow Boys.
seasons
“I have never had to travel far for inspiration. A need for solitude has attracted me to unpeopled places, where man’s intervention is least apparent, the haunts of dippers and goosanders by the river, fox in the glen, hare on the hill top and buzzard and hawk in the clouds above the thorn hedges of the valley.�
Geraniums, July mixed media, 60cm x 70cm
Lush Growth, August mixed media, 49cm x 70cm
Rainy Day, June mixed media, 42cm x 50cm
Orchard Knowe mixed media, 23cm x 67cm
Boundary Hedge mixed media, 42cm x 62cm
Misty Morning, November mixed media, 56cm x 76cm
Summer Sun mixed media, 42cm x 45cm
Formal Garden (6 of 25 shown) acrylic, 20cm x 20cm
storms
“I started drawing outside, sitting beside my father as he painted on the north shore of Iona, when I was eight. I didn’t know then that my life would revolve around the challenge and practice of painting.”
The Cloud of Unknowing mixed media, 48cm x 58cm previous page
Looking North mixed media, 48cm x 98cm
Valley Storm mixed media, 55cm x 55cm
Stormstruck mixed media, 55cm x 55cm
The Sky is Torn Across mixed media, 70cm x 80cm
Towering Clouds mixed media, 70cm x 72cm
Hill Fire (a study) mixed media, 27cm x 36cm
Break the Clouds Anger mixed media, 70cm x 56cm
Patterns in the Mist mixed media, 75cm x 71cm
Sunny Sunday mixed media, 71cm x 99cm
designed by Michael Corsar for Roger Billcliffe Gallery - June 2015
to see the cherry hang with snow mixed media, 20cm x 23cm
roger billcliffe gallery 134 blythswood street glasgow g2 4el t 0141 332 4027 • info@billcliffegallery.com • www.billcliffegallery.com