Matthew Draper | Amongst The Clouds by The Scottish Gallery

2 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 26 NOVEMBER 20 16

www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/matthewdraper 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ | tel 0131 558 1200 | email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk | www.scottish-gallery.co.uk Cover: Detail from A Moment in Time, 2016, pastel on paper, 41.5 x 62.5 cms (cat. 10)

The Scottish Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of new work by Matthew Draper, the first time we have worked with the artist. If there are concerns about the skills and imagination inherent in the adventure of drawing being lost to a generation of art school graduates, Draperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ambition and achievement in the medium of pastel is both exciting and reassuring. In this body of work he reveals the gentle collision of mountain and cloud, celebrates the smoky beauty of Edinburgh in the gloaming and explores and revisits the romantic vision of the late eighteenth century romantic landscape painter Alexander Nasmyth. We are indebted to the writer Tim Cornwell for his insights gleaned from long conversations with the artist in his Edinburgh studio.

FOREWORD

by Tim Cornwell

Those of us with Cornish, and Scottish habits can share in Matthew Draper’s journey north. The rugged, treacherous, alluring coastline of West Cornwall, the storm-blown, surf-blown rocks and cliffs that brought a fateful end to many a transatlantic crossing, have featured powerfully in his past work. Artistically the Scottish-Cornish connection is one made forcefully through the collection of the St Ives School works in the Pier Art Centre in Orkney; in the driftwood constructions of Margaret Mellis, who went to Edinburgh College of Art as a teenager and moved to St Ives in 1939, sharing a home with Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth; or her contemporary Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. Draper’s Falmouth College of Art training led him inevitably to the coast around Lands End, a powerful setting that continued to feature in exhibitions only a few years back. But his work has shown in Scotland since the late 1990s; now firmly ensconced in Edinburgh, the series in this exhibition centre on his northern stomping grounds, from the North Bridge, to the Bass Rock, and Glen Coe. Painters once converged on Cornwall for a particular light and a Victorian vision of country life, the villages and fishwives. Cornish light can be mellow, settling and soft; in Scotland, it’s a more fickle and tempestuous thing altogether. For the BBC in a recent posting the haar is a prosaically simple sea fog, “damp drizzly stuff” on the east coast of Scotland and northern England, formed when warm air passes over the cold North Sea. In the hands of Matthew Draper, haze and spray, urban and sea fog, are a painter’s gift. For a haar, a Highland mist, a shaft of light, a downpour of rain, an incipient snow storm over wintry slopes, Draper works his pastels into the heavy paper’s grain, manipulating the colour grinds with fingers or the palm of his hand, working his pigments the way the weather works and moves the Scottish landscape. It creates great motion in the

work: the elements, on the move, and sometimes the landscape too; the texture of a shifting, floating cloud, a snowy hillside with a glacial flow, pouring into the hills below. The Scottish capital’s sea weather, a place for hail from a sunny sky, figures richly in the literature of Edinburgh and its surroundings. In James Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, George, the young son of the Laird of Dalcastle, wakes early and sets out “to breathe the breeze of the morning.” He finds the haze so close around that on the Canongate he cannot see the houses across the street – “a blue haze, like dense smoke” – while grass and flowers are coated in a delicate silvery dew. As he walks up Arthur’s Seat he encounters “a bright halo in the cloud of haze” rises over his head like a pale rainbow, a vision formed by “the rays of the sun from a pure unclouded morning sky striking up in this dense vapour which refracted them”. It is, one might say, a Matthew Draper morning. Take an early London train from Waverley as the haze clears in the morning, and you will see it there too, how completely he captures the early light. Robert Louis Stevenson writes acidly of an Edinburgh drenched with rain and “buried by fogs out of the east”. London too was famous for its fogs, ‘pea-soupers’ tinged yellow-orange or murky black by sulphurous smoke, or more attractively the Impressionistic haze featured in works by Whistler or Monet. For Sherlock Holmes, fog is fetid with crime; but there’s the theory, of course, that Holmes’ London was actually Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Edinburgh, what he calls in one story the “opalescent London reek”. Fog shrouds Dartmoor in drama in the Hound of the Baskervilles as it does the Scottish hills. At art school Draper took his pastels outdoors to record information about colour; then decided that the pastel pieces were better than the paintings he made from them. He shows

his sketchbooks, though they are sketches as a sketch might be in oil, vivid and heavy with colour. Like the photographer Ansel Adams, he’ll sketch at a stop in the road. He is emphatic that his landscapes are “witness events”, though not precisely accurate in location or scenery. For this exhibition, there’s more figuration, lines that are becoming more solid, though Draper is at pains to describe his work as descriptive, rather than illustrative. “The paper is not only my end object, but it’s my palette”, Matthew Draper explains where a painter would mix colours first, or mix new colours they are applying to wet paint on the canvas, Draper builds up a surface, blending layers of pastel on the paper, adding or taking away, fixing and working finely over it again. It took him years to find the heavy, print-makers paper that he works and works, with pastels from Germany and France or hand-rolled in Britain, heavy in earthy browns, greens, and greys. Draper shows here at The Scottish Gallery for the first time, though solo shows have built a steady collectors’ clientele in Scotland over some 15 years. Some images here are familiar to earlier work, like his views across North Bridge; others not. In pieces like Downpour (cat. 36), a drenching torrent contrasts with shafts of light; in other works, James Hoggs’ “bright halo” breaks through in a Matthew Draper sky. Painting in the early mornings he reaches for “the magical hour when the light changes… you go to see it and you miss it”. “It’s wild,” he says of Edinburgh. “I’ve not lived anywhere where the weather and light is so dramatic. It’s a beautiful city. I’ve always made work about places I’ve lived. It’s an inspiring place to be an artist, especially if you make work about landscape.” It’s a feeling echoed by anyone who lives in and loves Edinburgh, who relishes the place in all its changing moods.

Draper works on landscapes in series and they are reflected in some 48 pictures in this exhibition. Some are of dramatic scale, and among the most ambitious is Luminous, A View of Tantallon Castle with the Bass Rock (Homage to Alexander Nasmyth Part II) (cat. 37). Nasmyth’s view of Tantallon Castle, a highlight of the Scottish National Gallery’s collection is a favourite of Draper’s, along with Frederic Edwin Church’s steamy and impressionistic Niagara Falls, from the American side. Nasmyth’s work has Victorian drama: a sailing ship perilously close to being smashed on the rocks, a figure busy with boat in the foreground. He has worked on his response to Nasmyth’s work over ten years; he went down to the slippy rocks of Seacliff by day, but set his own picture in moonlight. While the original inspiration is noisy and cataclysmic and day lit, Draper puts us onto the rocks at night; ship and figure have gone, the noise of the waves muffled, the black rocks of the foreground like watching seals; the lines of Nasmyth’s surf are the same but in a frozen motion. By contrast, there is a lightness of the stunning early morning images of the Bass Rock, a personal favourite in this show; memories of a churning sea gives way to a soft haze lifting on a preternaturally calm ocean. When Draper worked on pictures of London, he went for harder edges, reflecting the modern architecture, corners of glass and stone. Edinburgh’s structures and architectural features are blurred, the obscurity created, when the phenomenon builds up after a fine day, when the smoky tendrils snake in around the Scott monument. In Winter Haar (cat. 34), a view of North Bridge that has been a recurring series, the “blue haze” is much in evidence. Waverley Station roof is shown in pale blues, snow lies on the bridge, a white haze spreads across, all tinged in purples and blues, while he uses the pastel to pull out pinpoints of orange light for the streetlights, while pools of light glow under the bridge. There’s an increase in figurative detail: the Caledonian Hotel in the

distance, the Bank of Scotland, the crown steeple of St Giles poking out. His series from his kitchen window, by contrast, has a delicious Edinburgh intimacy, that any flat-dweller looking out, the small space to the large, can immediately relate to. He bought the flat for the view across to Arthur’s Seat, the chimneys on MacDonald Road, the Hibs football ground. He captures the early morning, as the sun breaks through above the Seat and Salisbury Craggs like some industrial scene. The reds and browns of works like Descending Rays (cat. 15) have a Biblical distance, a far away feel as the clouds catch the dawn light. In a separate series, Draper introduces his pictures around Ben Ledi, north of Callander, which he climbed on the recommendation of a pilot friend. In Amongst the Clouds, a View from Ben Ledi (cat. 12), the dark waters of Loch Lubnaig are dotted with cloud while peaks in the background, seen amid the breaks of pale blue, are Ben Vorlich and Stuc a Chroin. In his powerful Nearing the Summit (cat. 13), the clouds rise threateningly like smoke from a volcano, over the grassy green and white of a snowy slope. In both Rapid, a Snow Filled Vista (cat. 11), and A Moment in Time (cat. 10), amid the ice and snow and freezing cold, layers of light coming to foregrounds of dark curves, in richly satisfying compositions. In the past, he says, he has tried to show the effect of light; now he is showing the source of light. He’s up close and intimate with his subject. The clouds seem in conversation with the darkened slope; it is hard to define where the cloud ends, and the landscape begins, but both are in flowing motion, like glacial seascapes.

Alexander Nasmyth, A View of Tantallon Castle with The Bass Rock, c.1816, oil on canvas, 92 x 122.3 cms, National Galleries of Scotland

EAST LOT H I A N

Detail from Passing Rays, Bass Rock Study, 2016, pastel on paper, 17.5 x 24.5 cms (cat. 6)

1. Clearing, a Morning at Seacliff (Part VI), 2016, pastel on paper, 51.5 x 70.5 cms

2. Crystal Clear, a Morning at Seacliff (Part VII), 2016, pastel on paper, 44.5 x 66 cms

3. Illume, a View of the Bass Rock, 2016, pastel on paper, 30 x 25 cms

4. Glint, the Bass Rock from Seacliff, 2016, pastel on paper, 24 x 32 cms

5. Haar Lifting, a Morning at Seacliff (Part V), 2016, pastel on paper, 49 x 68.5 cms

6. Passing Rays, Bass Rock Study, 2016, pastel on paper, 17.5 x 24.5 cms

7. Morning Haze, 2016, pastel on paper, 22 x 29.5 cms

8. Passing Rays with an Illuminated Bass Rock, 2016, pastel on paper, 27 x 42 cms

9. A Fleeting Moment, 2016, pastel on paper, 27 x 24 cms

THE HIGHLANDS

Detail from Amongst the Clouds, a View from Ben Ledi, 2016, pastel on paper, 65.5 x 166 cms (cat. 12)

10. A Moment in Time, 2016, pastel on paper, 41.5 x 62.5 cms

11. Rapid, a Snow Filled Vista, 2016, pastel on paper, 75 x 169.5 cms

12. Amongst the Clouds, a View from Ben Ledi, 2016, pastel on paper, 65.5 x 166 cms

13. Nearing the Summit, 2016, pastel on paper, 50 x 139.5 cms

AULD REEKIE

Detail from Morning Sun with a Heavy Shower, Kitchen Window Series No.22, 2016, pastel on paper, 24 x 68.5 cms (cat. 28)

14. As The Haar Snakes In, 2016, pastel on paper, 113 x 169 cms

15. Descending Rays, Kitchen Window Series No.23, 2016, pastel on paper, 81 x 103.5 cms

16. In The Dead Of Night, 2016, pastel on paper, 26.5 x 65.5 cms

17. Shifting Light, a View of Arthurs Seat, Kitchen Window Series No.24, 2016, pastel on paper, 36.5 x 54 cms

18. Nocturne with Polluted Light (Part I), 2016, pastel on paper, 66 x 116.5 cms

19. Nocturne with Polluted Light (Part II), 2016, pastel on paper, 100 x 166 cms

20. Sunrise (Part I), Kitchen Window Series No.17, 2016, pastel on paper, 26.5 x 41.5 cms

21. Shrouded, a View of Auld Reekie, 2016, pastel on paper, 89.5 x 165.5 cms

22. Sunrise (Part III), Kitchen Window Series No.19, 2016, pastel on paper, 26.5 x 41.5 cms

23. Nocturne with Polluted Light (Part 6), 2016, pastel on paper, 30.5 x 37 cms

24. Sunrise (Part II), Kitchen Window Series No.18, 2016, pastel on paper, 26.5 x 41.5 cms

25. Low Cloud with a Hint of Rain, Kitchen Window Series No.21, 2016, pastel on paper, 23.5 x 70cms

26. Nocturne with a Heavy Haar, 2016, pastel on paper, 33 x 54 cms

27. Nocturne with Fallen Snow, 2016, pastel on paper, 30 x 43 cms

28. Morning Sun with a Heavy Shower, Kitchen Window Series No.22, 2016, pastel on paper, 24 x 68.5 cms

29. Beam, Kitchen Window Series No.20, 2106, pastel on paper, 24 x 34 cms

30. Winter Sun, 2016, pastel on paper, 35.5 x 46.5 cms

31. Impending Storm, the Crags from Blackford, 2016, pastel on paper, 15 x 21 cms

32. Squall, Kitchen Window Series No.16, 2016, pastel on paper, 30 x 58.5 cms

33. Winter Haar II, 2016, pastel on paper, 30 x 47.5 cms

34. Winter Haar, 2016, pastel on paper, 69.5 x 167.5 cms

35. Haar Descending, 2016, pastel on paper, 63 x 116.5 cms

36. Downpour, Kitchen Window Series No.15, 2016, pastel on paper, 23 x 69 cms

HOMAGE TO ALEXANDER NASMY TH

Detail from Moonlit, A View of Tantallon Castle with the Bass Rock (Homage to Alexander Nasmyth Part I), 2016, pastel on paper, 42 x 63 cms (cat. 38)

37. Luminous, A View of Tantallon Castle with the Bass Rock (Homage to Alexander Nasmyth Part II), 2016, pastel on paper, 102.5 x 169 cms

38. Moonlit, A View of Tantallon Castle with the Bass Rock (Homage to Alexander Nasmyth Part I), 2016, pastel on paper, 42 x 63 cms

39. Illuminated, A View of Tantallon Castle with the Bass Rock (Homage to Alexander Nasmyth Part III), 2016, pastel on paper, 40 x 62 cms

40. Tantallon at Dusk, 2016, pastel on paper, 50.5 x 69 cms

41. Tantallon by Moonlight, 2016, pastel on paper, 44 x 68 cms

MATTHEW DRAPER

AWARDS

1973 Born Stone, Staffordshire

2016 Charles Pears Award, Royal Society of Marine Artists, Mall Galleries, London

1991—1992 Walsall College of Art

2015 Henry Roche Award, Pastel Society, Mall Galleries, London

1992—1995 Falmouth College of Arts BA(hons) Fine Art

2013 Orrin Trust Award, National Open Art Exhibition, Royal College of Art, London, Touring the UK 2012 Pan Pastels Award, Pastel Society, Mall Galleries, London

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2011 Visitors Choice Award, National Open Art Exhibition, Chichester

2016 Amongst The Clouds, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

2011 Regional Prize, National Open Art Exhibition, Chichester

2015 From Metropolis to Wilderness, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro

2011 Elected member of The Pastel Society, UK, Federation of British Artists, Mall Galleries, London

2014 Eilean a Cheo, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

2010 City of Glasgow Prize, Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts

2013 Northern Light, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro

2010 Buzzacot Award, Pastel Society, Mall Galleries, London

2012 Time Lapse, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

2010 Annie Longley Memorial Award, Pastel Society, Mall Galleries, London

2011 New Pastels, Beaux Arts, Bath

2010 Connell and Connell Prize, Scottish Society of Artists, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

2010 Festival Exhibition, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

2009 The Scottish Gallery Award, Visual Arts Scotland, City Art Centre, Edinburgh

2009 Nocturnes, Beaux Arts, Bath

2008 Shell Premier Award, Aberdeen Artists, Aberdeen Museum and Art Gallery

2009 In Series, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro

2007 Chairman’s Purchase Prize, Discerning Eye Exhibition, London

2008 Luminism, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

2007 Anthony J Lester Art Critic Award, Pastel Society, Mall Galleries, London

2007 January Light, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro

2006 John Murray Thomson Award, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

2006 Time and Place, Beaux Arts, Bath

2006 Cross Gate Gallery Award, Kentucky USA Pastel Society, Mall Galleries, London

2006 Seven Hills, The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

2004 Contemporary Fine Art Gallery Award, Paisley Art Institute

2005 Nostalgia, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro

2004 Most popular work in the exhibition, Hunting Art Prizes

2004 Panorama, Beaux Arts, Bath

2002 City of Glasgow Prize, Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts

2004 Old Town, The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

2001 Commendation Aberdeen Artists Society

2002 Atmosphere and Twilight, The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

2000 Alexander Graham Munro Travel Award, Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour

2000 Night Life, The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh 1999 The Reynolds Gallery, Edinburgh

COLLECTIONS Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh City Art Centre, Edinburgh Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Art in Healthcare Turcan Connell, Edinburgh and London

Dundas Global, Edinburgh Walter Scott and Partners, Edinburgh Premier Property Group, Edinburgh Morton Fraser Solicitors, Edinburgh Caledonia Hotel, Edinburgh

Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition: MATTHEW DRAPER AMONGST THE CLOUDS 2â&#x20AC;&#x201D;26 November 2016 ISBN 978-1-910267-47-9 Designed by Martin Baillie Photography by John McKenzie Printed by Allander Print Ltd

16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ tel 0131 558 1200 | email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk