JAMES MORRISON
James Morrison For Greer McKay - Move Him Into the Sun 6 - 30 November 2013
Cover: Landscape 1, 31.x.2011, oil on canvas, 98 x 140 cms Left: Landscape with Seven Figures, 9.x.2011, oil on canvas, 100 x 140 cms
Detail of Landscape with Sixteen Figures, 19.x.2011 oil on canvas, 117 x 100 cms (see page 7)
“The reasons for making the paintings in this exhibition come from two remarkable women. My late wife, Dorothy, was a distinguished historian. In the nineteen eighties she was asked by Scottish Television to oversee their Schools series of programmes on the Great War, and to write a book to accompany the series. Ann Keddy and I became partners in 2006, she being in the same position as myself, having lost her much loved spouse Ken. In 2011 she felt her grandson, Rory, should be exposed to the realities of the 1914-18 conflict. She also wanted to visit the grave of her great uncle Greer. The whole experience was deeply moving and very sad. For me, it brought back to my mind Dorothy’s book and her work on the war. When I returned home I was moved to make light paintings, this time in oil paint, of the death and destruction of the landscape and the soldiers. This small exhibition is to honour all, on both sides who died.”
James Morrison
Landscape with Sixteen Figures, 19.x.2011 oil on canvas, 117 x 100 cms
Landscape 3, 23.i.2012 oil on canvas, 92 x 213 cms
Landscape with Six Figures, 26.ix.2011 oil on canvas, 90 x 159 cms
Landscape with One Figure, 8.x.2011 oil on canvas, 90 x 153 cms
Right: Landscape 1, 31.x.2011, oil on canvas, 98 x 140 cms Back cover: Landscape with Two Figures, 6.ii.2012, oil on canvas, 35 x 51 cms