DUNCAN SHANKS DRAWING THE YEAR
Such is beauty ever – if I seek her elsewhere because I do not find her at home, my search will be a fruitless one. Henry David Thoreau
DRAWING THE YEAR DUNCAN SHANKS
7 October to 2 November 2013 16 Dundas Street · Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Telephone +44 (0) 131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
FOREWORD No one can be more in tune with nature than the landscape painter who walks. Each step on the way changes some aspect of experience and all experience, internal and external, is put to work in the creative process. And for a painter so sensitive to change, in weather, in the growth and decay of nature’s cycle there might be sufficient on the doorstep, or from the studio window to inspire a lifetime’s work, indeed the profusion of nature exaggerated by geography might positively discourage travel. Duncan Shanks is not cowed by the full spectacle of nature: of towering thunderheads, of fires burning on a rocky mountaintop, or the rush of the waterfall. His engagement is all consuming. It is not the noting of a surprise natural occurrence. Instead he understands how change is the constant and that death is ever present. In Drawing the Year, he has deliberately abandoned his sketchbook in favour of single, larger sheets to record what he has always recorded, the passing seasons from his studio, across the garden, the river, up the valley side to the ever changing sky. The sequence gives us a unique understanding of the artist’s approach, the place and perhaps our own short tenure within it.
Guy Peploe
[ 1 ] Japanese Anemones, August acrylic on paper · 50 x 70 cm · illustrated opposite title page
[ 2 ] Crab Apple, August acrylic on paper · 57 x 76 cm
GARDEN & RIVERBANK In the endless natural sequence which colours the Scottish landscape, there is one constant and that is change. From the infinite variety of images created, these drawings are my visual diary of moments to be remembered and sources yet to be explored. Though the trend for revolution and originality in art has made drawing from nature seem passé and obsolete, I still believe passionately in its revelatory power. I started recording nature when I was young and I have never stopped. It is an addiction and a compulsion – a craving I have never managed to satisfy. I live by regularity. Routines, questioning and slow deliberation prevail. Only in front of nature with paint on paper can I throw caution to the wind and act on impulse.
[ 3 ] Hedge Parsley acrylic on paper · 18 x 16.25 cm
There is still a thrill as a painter, in catching a moment in time, when the familiar is transformed and the mundane becomes magical. The making is automatic and for a period, judgement is suspended. Mistakes and corrections are left in the rush to record something that I may never see again.
It is an act of discovery, revealing the endless pictorial possibilities of the valley around me, when seasonal changes in my riverside garden become a kaleidoscope of colour. I drew the same view almost daily between September 2012 and June 2013, moving between the lush enclosure of summer green, through the transient and startling yellows of autumn, to bare open vistas, made fragile and luminous in the low winter sunlight. Usually, the regular repetition of a motif is to build a deeper knowledge of a subject and to collect a vocabulary of images as a resource for studio work, but in this case, I exhausted the potential of this particular motif in making the studies. For the moment, the culmination of my endeavour is the combined series, seen as a single statement.
overleaf: detail from Riverside Garden, December [cat.9]
[ 4 ] Sunshine and Shade, August
[ 5 ] Lush Growth, August
acrylic on paper · 57 x 76 cm
acrylic on paper · 50 x 76 cm
[ 6 ] Windy Day, October acrylic on paper · 55 x 77 cm
October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow flashes around the world. Henry David Thoreau
[ 7 ] Crab Apple and Crows, November acrylic on paper · 57 x 76 cm
[ 8 ] Misty Morning, November
[ 9 ] Riverside Garden, December
acrylic on paper · 56 x 76 cm
acrylic on paper · 122 x 152 cm
[ 10 ] Late Sunlight, December
[ 11 ] Reflections, February
acrylic on paper · 122 x 134 cm
acrylic on paper · 70 x 100 cm
[ 12 ] Afternoon Light, February
[ 13 ] Fleeting Light, February
acrylic on paper · 122 x 152 cm
acrylic on paper · 122 x 153 cm
[ 14 ] Evening Sun, February
[ 15 ] Snow Shower, March
acrylic on paper · 80 x 121 cm
acrylic on paper · 56 x 77 cm
[ 16 ] Heavy Snow, March
[ 17 ] Still Winter River, March
acrylic on paper · 57 x 76 cm
acrylic on paper · 56.5 x 77 cm
[ 18 ] Winter River, March
[ 19 ] Fresh Day, April
acrylic on paper · 53 x 47 cm
acrylic on paper · 56 x 75 cm
Nature never makes haste, her systems resolve at an even pace. The buds swell imperceptibly without hurry or confusion as though the short spring days were an eternity. Henry David Thoreau
[ 20 ] Blossom, May
[ 21 ] White Parasol, June
acrylic on paper · 63 x 68 cm
acrylic on paper · 49.5 x 70 cm
[ 22 ] The Open Door, April
[ 23 ] Tulips, May
acrylic on paper · 50 x 71 cm
acrylic on paper · 50 x 54 cm
[ 24 ] Rainy Day, June
[ 25 ] Geraniums, July
acrylic on paper · 46 x 54 cm
acrylic on paper · 64 x 70 cm
FIELD & VALLEY While working consistently on the riverbank series, I found it liberating to escape the confines of the garden and experience the air and space of the hill. I regularly climbed the steep track from the river to the fields above. I drew the storm clouds gathering over the northern hills, followed by the cycle of growth and harvest in the cornfield and as winter came, watched the valley crossed by snow showers and disappear in drifts of mist. Though it is a familiar landscape, it continues to surprise, and even after years of study, nature’s unpredictability still forces me to abandon routine and the rule book and on a good day’s drawing, experience a still moment of clarity and certainty in the chaos of change. opposite: detail from Approaching Storm, August [cat.27]
[ 26 ] Cornfield, August
[ 27 ] Approaching Storm, August
acrylic on paper · 58 x 57.5 cm
acrylic on paper · 61 x 56 cm
[ 28 ] Stubble Field, November
[ 29 ] Showers over Hillend, February
acrylic on paper · 62 x 56 cm
acrylic on paper · 57 x 56 cm
[ 30 ] Storm Clouds, February
[ 31 ] Frosty Evening, March
acrylic on paper · 39 x 67 cm
acrylic on paper · 44 x 57 cm
Image for 474 missing
[ 32 ] Falling Snow, March
[ 33 ] Showers, April
acrylic on paper · 50 x 54 cm
acrylic on paper · 69 x 56 cm
[ 34 ] Spring
[ 35 ] Summer
[ 36 ] Autumn
[ 37 ] Winter
acrylic on paper · 22.5 x 23 cm
acrylic on paper · 18 x 18 cm
acrylic on paper · 26.5 x 25 cm
acrylic on paper · 29.5 x 30 cm
DUNCAN SHANKS Duncan Shanks was born in Airdrie in 1937 and studied at Glasgow School of Art where he later lectured, stepping down to become a full time painter in 1979. He has been honoured with membership of the RSA, RSW and RGI. Drawing the Year is his ninth solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery. His work can be found in numerous private and public collections throughout Britain, Europe and North America.
16 Dundas Street · Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Telephone +44 (0) 131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk Gallery hours: Monday to Friday 10–6pm Saturday 10–4pm
Published by The Scottish Gallery for the exhibition Duncan Shanks: Drawing the Year held at 16 Dundas Street, 7 October to 2 November 2013 Text and images © Duncan Shanks 2o12 Catalogue © The Scottish Gallery 2012 All rights reserved I SB N 9 7 8 1 9 0 5 1 4 6 8 4 0 Photography by John McKenzie Designed and typeset in Trump by Dalrymple Printed by J. Thomson Colour Printers, Glasgow Bound by Taskforce, Edinburgh Front cover: detail from Snow Shower, March [cat.15] Back cover: detail from Fresh Day, April [cat.19] Inside covers: details from Afternoon Light, February [cat.12]