DUNCAN SHANKS THE RIVERBANK
Duncan Shanks The Riverbank – A Landscape of Sorrow and Hope 28 July – 27 August 2022
16 Dundas Street·Edinburgh EH3 6HZ +44 (0) 131 558 1200 mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
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DUNCAN SHANKS THE RIVERBANK A Landscape of Sorrow and Hope
TH E S C O T T I S H G A L L E R Y 2022
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A LANDSCAPE OF SORROW AND HOPE
Frontispiece Detail of Drift in Time [cat.47] Left Duncan Shanks on the riverbank, May 2022
Duncan Shanks has lived in Crossford in the Clyde Valley for over 50 years. The river which flows past the bottom of his house and garden is a constant presence in his life. The water lapping the tangled bank is an ever-present soundtrack. Slow surface currents swirl hypnotically in high summer, but in spate the river can swell to twice the size, threatening to engulf the bridge in the village and leaving the banks flattened and sodden in its aftermath. It is only when the river freezes that the surface is still, a rare phenomenon which is the inspiration for several works in this exhibition. From his studio at the top of the garden Shanks can see the flow of water, in the spring and summer the view partly obscured by foliage. For Shanks the studio and garden are intrinsically one. Work begins in the garden with his sketchbook, before being reprised: sampled, left, repainted, discarded then rediscovered and resolved. The journey of a painting echoing the life of the garden, which is cultivated, but then left to follow its own untamed path.
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Previous exhibitions have focused on the drama of the landscape and the balance between structure and chaos, like the greenhouse series in his show Drawing the Year in 2013. The exhibition at the Talbot Rice in 1998 captured the Falls of Clyde, the subject being the water as it cascaded from the high rocks creating a wall of pure energy. Storms and fires on Tinto Hill have also been a rich source of inspiration, recording the sky alive with the crackle of lightning and towering clouds of darkness. Now, for Shanks, this little corner of the Clyde Valley has all the magnificence and drama of a grand vista. It is the act of looking which is the driving force behind his art; by observing the garden and river every day, moments can be witnessed that he will have never seen before. This might take the form of a low winter sun, piercing through the tangled branches like a laser, dissolving form; or the spring of the Davingill Burn, frothing into the Clyde with a lace of pattern and energy. Shanks is constantly pushing his painting forward in a search for new ways to share his experience of the natural world. The surface of the painting is important, and he will vary
his application of the paint to translate the texture of his experience. Using water-based medium there is no clear distinction between drawing and painting, the struggle towards resolution dictating the depth of layers and energy in the brushstrokes. For Shanks, painting matters, toil is essential, doubt and even suffering a necessary corollary of the creative process. A life dedicated to art, sometimes in the face of indifference, a work ethic that sees a day without painting or drawing as wasted, a voracious appetite to find parallels in writing and music; this is Shanks’ world, undimmed after a career spanning six decades and one he allows us to share in our Festival exhibition at The Scottish Gallery. Tommy Zy w, 2022 To complement the exhibition we will be releasing two new films produced by the Edinburgh Film Company. We are grateful to the artist for allowing us to record him in his working environment, where he offers personal insights into his artistic practice with an audience for the first time.
Left Duncan Shanks at home and the studio, 2022. Photographs courtesy of the Edinburgh Film Company
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EXPLORING THE MYSTERIOUS CORRESPONDENCES BETWEEN N AT U R E A N D I M A G I N AT I O N
1 Riverbank acrylic on paper · 47.5 x 76 cm
The pandemic has cast a great shadow over our world and our lives and with the emerging evidence of climate change, we have been forced to face the uncertainty of life as we have known it. I live by the river and nature has been my distraction from darker thoughts through two difficult years. Solitary, by nature, my work routine has changed little, but the overriding physiological atmosphere has had its consequences. I like to be active and outdoors. I draw almost every day, not towards a specific painting, but simply to be in nature. I move through the landscape making notes of anything which catches my eye. With the enforced isolation from people and places my focus has turned inward to my close surroundings, – to the river and the riverbank. During the pandemic, the riverbank has become an obsession. Captivated by the mesmeric power of water, my drawings try to capture the river’s constant motion, following its pattern formation, distortions and changing accents with the scribbled bundles of lines, chaotic configurations of unconstrained energy. The treelined bank is less dramatic, but equally compelling, lush and claustrophobic in August, stark 9
2 Source acrylic on paper · 70 x 87 cm
in winter, with only the bare brittle bones of the summer’s growth, wild roses twisting through branches of larch and cherry, cascading to the ground in impenetrable screens which only the low winter sun can fracture and dissolve. Nothing about the scatter of visual notes that begin to cover my studio wall seems stable or predictable. The overall layered skeins of activity are echoed and complimented in the painting process. Working with papers spread across my studio floor, the sense of instability and unrest is unchecked. I begin painting with few preconceptions and let the mark making dictate the development. The instinct to organise and control the scribbles, drips and blobs that spread across my paper is forgotten in the mindless momentum of the moment. From the blocks of moving, overall paint, I gradually find my river images, continually dismantling and reconstructing their form and design in a search for that elusive moment when paint and nature come together. Though unplanned and unintentional, the predominant theme and character which has emerged from my work has been a sense of enclosure. It is a restless yet invigorating confinement and unlike the tranquillity of a medieval enclosed garden or
the well-tended flowerbeds and pools of Giverny, is an unforgiving close up of untamed nature. Boccaccio, in the 14th century described his companions on the slopes of the Fiesole Hills ‘in a plot of ground like a meadow the grass deep-spangled with a thousand different flowers, while the plague festered outside the walls’. This flowery meadow, this sanctuary of peace, which the poet chronicles, is very different from the dense intertwining growth which spread across my papers and though some paintings are more meditative, there is never an escape from the tension beyond the river and the trees. Living with my art, at this time has not always been comfortable. As Bonnard said ‘he who sings is not always happy’. In this time of loss and sadness, it is only the river which is a continuing life force and mirror of hope and dreams. It has been an essential and absorbing part of my life for many years, but vital to me during the pandemic. To suggest the flow of life beyond a painting’s edge is to imply hope against extinction. Duncan shankS, 2022 ‘I applaud the wind that rises and the constant flow of the water – the water that flowed before man existed and will continue to flow long after he is gone’. Jean Dubuffet 11
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LIGHT SUN AND M O ON
3 Moon acrylic on paper · 70 x 100 cm
4 Sunrise III acrylic on paper · 21.5 x 42 cm
5 Midnight acrylic on paper · 70 x 100 cm
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6 Storm
7 Sunrise I
acrylic on paper · 27.5 x 28.5 cm
acrylic on paper · 40 x 40 cm
8 Sunrise II
9 Hazy Sun
acrylic on paper · 18.5 x 20 cm
acrylic on paper · 47.5 x 53 cm
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10 Mist acrylic on paper · 20 x 31 cm
11 Winter Sun acrylic on paper · 21 x 49 cm
12 Night Owl acrylic on paper · 91 x 106 cm
13 Shadows acrylic on paper · 55.5 x 76 cm
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14 Full Moon acrylic on paper · 45.5 x 70 cm
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15 Riverbank Path acrylic on paper · 56 x 76 cm
16 Mist at Sunrise acrylic on paper · 76 x 102 cm
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17 Red Sky acrylic on paper · 49.5 x 70 cm
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18 Snow Flakes acrylic on paper · 52 x 75.5 cm
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19 Doves at Dusk acrylic on paper · 70 x 95 cm
20 Petal Fall acrylic on paper · 102.5 x 153 cm
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N AT U R E U N TA M E D
21 Damson Blossom acrylic on paper · 80 x 121 cm
22 Wild Roses acrylic on paper · 56 x 76 cm
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23 Summer Garden acrylic on paper · 59 x 70 cm
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24 Summer Bank acrylic on paper · 56 x 76 cm 33
25 Night Garden acrylic on paper · 122 x 153 cm
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26 Raindrops
27 Flourish Best Untamed
acrylic on paper · 56 x 70.5 cm
acrylic on paper · 122 x 153 cm
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28 Overgrown acrylic on paper · 122 x 153 cm
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M O VEMENT T H E F L O O D
29 Flood Water acrylic on paper · 70 x 100 cm
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30 Winter River
31 Sun on the Water
acrylic on paper · 57 x 76 cm
acrylic on paper · 80 x 102 cm
32 Autumn acrylic on paper · 56 x 76 cm
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33 Wet Weather acrylic on paper · 70 x 94.5 cm
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34 High Water acrylic on paper · 70 x 83 cm
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35 Buzzard acrylic on paper · 51.5 x 76 cm
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36 Spate I acrylic on paper · 39 x 52 cm
37 Spate II acrylic on paper · 39 x 52 cm
38 Downpour acrylic on paper · 33.5 x 44 cm
39 Flowing Fast acrylic on paper · 80 x 121 cm
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41 Flotsam and Jetsam II acrylic on paper · 20 x 20 cm
40 Flotsam and Jetsam I acrylic on paper · 35 x 34.5 cm
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43 Riverside Tree acrylic on paper · 15 x 17 cm
42 Stranded acrylic on paper · 28 x 21 cm
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44 After the Flood acrylic on paper · 76.5 x 122 cm
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45 Autumn Drift acrylic on paper · 122 x 76.5 cm
46 Sun Burst acrylic on paper · 122 x 153 cm
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47 Drift in Time acrylic on paper · 58 x 76.5 cm
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48 Last Leaf acrylic on paper · 122 x 122 cm
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THERE HANGS A VEIL OF BOUGHS
49 Snow and Ice acrylic on paper · 56 x 72.5 cm
50 Autumn River acrylic on paper · 55.5 x 56 cm
51 Last Leaves acrylic on paper · 39.5 x 40 cm
52 The Offering acrylic on paper · 36.5 x 36.5 cm
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53 Hanging Garden acrylic on paper · 70 x 70 cm
54 Barrier acrylic on paper · 70 x 79.5 cm
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55 Frozen River acrylic on paper · 77 x 56 cm
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56 Ice on the River acrylic on paper · 78.5 x 70.5 cm
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57 Sun acrylic and collage on paper · 41.5 x 36 cm
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58 Reflections acrylic on paper · 61 x 57 cm
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59 Ice acrylic on paper · 63 x 56 cm
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60 Blown in the Wind acrylic on paper · 50 x 70 cm
61 Moonlight acrylic on paper · 35 x 100 cm
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We shall not cease from exploration – And the end of our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time From T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding, Four Quartets
62 Return of the Sun acrylic on paper · three panels, each 100 x 70 cm
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DUNCAN SHANKS RSA RSW RGI Born Airdrie, 1937
2002 Beyond the Valley, artLondon, with The Scottish Gallery
Studied Glasgow School of Art, 1955–60 Post Diploma and Travelling Scholarship to Italy, 1960
2004 Along an Overgrown Path, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
Part-time lecturer at Glasgow School of Art until 1979
2006 Air, Fire and Rain, Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow
Elected Member of: Royal Scottish Academy Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts Solo Exhibitions 1981 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1984 The Fine Art Society, Glasgow and Edinburgh 1988 Falling Water, Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh; Crawford Centre, University of St Andrews; MacLaurin Art Gallery, Ayr 1990 Contemporary Art Season, Glasgow Art Gallery 1991 Patterns of Flight, The Fine Art Society, Glasgow and Edinburgh 1991–2, Wrexham Arts Centre, Touring Exhibition 1992 Roger Billcliffe Fine Art, Glasgow 1994 The Creative Process, Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow 1994 Hill of Fire, Roger Billcliffe Fine Art, Glasgow 1997 Of Wet and of Wildness, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2000 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
2007 In a Summer Garden, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2009 In Search of Time Past, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2012 Across a Painted Sky, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2013 Drawing the Year, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2015 The Poetry of Place, Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow Works on Paper 1957–2013, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Seasons and Storms, Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow 2017 Winter Journey, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2018 Wanderer, Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow 2019 Transience, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2022 The Riverbank – Landscape of Sorrow and Hope, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Selected Group Exhibitions 1975 Five Glasgow Painters, City Art Centre, Edinburgh 1981–2 Contemporary Art from Scotland, Touring Exhibition arranged by The Scottish Gallery 1984 Weather, Scottish Arts Council Travelling Gallery 1985 About Landscape, Festival Exhibition, Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh
Left Duncan Shanks on the riverbank, 2017. Photography by John McKenzie
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1985 Western Approaches, Touring Exhibition of Contemporary Scottish Art, Rio de Janeiro
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
1986 Ten Scottish Painters, London
High Life Highland Exhibitions Unit, Inverness
1988 The Scottish Show, Oriel 31 Touring Exhibition, Wales 1991 Landscape to Art, Four Scottish Artists, Dundee Art Gallery 2000 The Scottish Landscape Survey Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2003 Six RSA Artists, University of Central Florida
Government Art Collection Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie Low Parks Museum, Hamilton Pitlochry Festival Theatre Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture, Edinburgh The Stewarty Museum, Kirkcudbright
Awards
University of Edinburgh
Scottish Arts Council Award
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow
Latimer Award and The Scottish Gallery Macaulay Prize
University of Stirling
Royal Scottish Academy Torrance Award
University of St Andrews
Cargill Award and Macfarlane Charitable Trust Award
Wardlaw Museum, St Andrews
Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts May Marshall Brown Award Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour Provost’s Prize for Contemporary Art, Goma Royal Bank of Scotland Award, RGI Selected Public Collections Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London The McManus, Dundee Art Gallery and Museum City Art Centre, Edinburgh Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation Glasgow Museums Resource Centre
Liter atur e 1990 William Hardie, Scottish Painting: 1837 to the Present, London Duncan Macmillan, Scottish Art: 1460–1990, Edinburgh 1993 William Hare, Contemporary Painting in Scotland, Edinburgh 1996 Duncan Macmillan, Scottish Art in the 20th Century, Edinburgh 2015 Anne Dulau Beveridge, The Poetry of Place, Duncan Shanks’s sketchbooks and the Upper Clyde, Glasgow
Left Duncan Shanks on the riverbank, 2022. Photography by John McKenzie
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Published by The Scottish Gallery for the exhibition Duncan Shanks, Riverbank – Landscape of Sorrow and Hope held at 16 Dundas Street from 28 July to 27 August 2022. ISBN 978 1 912900 54 1 Artworks © Duncan Shanks 2o22 Catalogue © The Scottish Gallery 2022 All rights reserved Photography by John McKenzie Design by Dalrymple / Nye Hughes Studio Printed by Pureprint Front and back covers: details from Sun Burst [cat.46] Inside cover design by the artist. Quotation from The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Left: Duncan Shanks in the garden, high summer, 2018.
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