With travel having not been possible of late, McGlashan has given way to journeys of the imagination. Although feeling restless, the artist refused to let this be a hindrance and allowed his thinking to travel further, leading to a deeper connection with his work that evokes a feeling in the viewer. This new series of paintings explores that place between the real and imagined, using references gleaned from personal experience - often recollections of travel. He also takes inspiration from imagery discovered in literature, historical events and often film.
Between The Dream and Waking considers the paintings as objects too – although a flat surface, these works describe form and spatial depth, offering something you can hold and feel. McGlashan has explored the more material nature of painting in these new compositions.
McGlashan comments, Over years of work in the studio, I have accumulated many ghosts. These are pieces of paper, stained and marked through the process of painting. I’ll often use a piece of paper as a blotter, to remove excess paint from the surface of another painting, so I am left with this relic of something other, like a memory. They are very beautiful in their own way - ghostly and thin, whispering forms that suggest something new. I decided to use these as a starting point for some of the paintings – they are bonded to panel, sealed, and then worked over. Those faint images may remain to the end or maybe completely obscured, but the point for me is that this feels like starting in the middle. It’s very liberating.
Each painting in this exhibition is its own object, arrived at by a process of making in which I create an environment of making and thinking which can encourage the accidental. Very little is prescribed, I like to keep the paintings active by allowing more to ‘come in’ as I think of it. In this way, the paintings evolve from one to the next and new territories are encountered.
Waldemar Januszczak of The Sunday Times described Barry McGlashan as having ‘…boundless curiosity, a spirit of adventure, lots of unalloyed nosiness, laced with a quality that is rare in important art: naughtiness.…’; this new exhibition at Edinburgh’s The Scottish Gallery, Between The Dream and Waking, brings the artist’s personality to life in this new series of paintings.
Between The Dream And Waking Art Exhibition
The art exhibition - Between The Dream And Waking is open between Thursday 28th October - Saturday 27th November 2021 at The Scottish Gallery, 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ.
Dundas Street is a short walk from the hive of Princes Street, where you can connect via the many bus and tram routes. It is a 13-minute walk from Edinburgh Waverley station.
About The Artist - Barry McGlashan
Born and raised in Aberdeen on the North East coast of Scotland, Barry McGlashan studied painting at Grays School of Art where he then returned to teach for a period. Winning The Alastair Salvesen Scholarship at The Royal Scottish Academy in 2001, McGlashan used the funds to travel through the United States for 3 months. This fascination with exploration and discovery has endured and continues to influence his work. Examples of his paintings are held in several public collections including Aberdeen Art Gallery, The Scottish Society (New York) and the Royal Scottish Academy.
About The Scottish Gallery
The Scottish Gallery was established in South St. David Street, Edinburgh by Aitken Dott in 1842 as "Gilders, Framers, and Artists' Colourmen", the firm, as it does today, also exhibited and sold work by the leading Scottish artists of the day. As all areas of the business grew, larger premises were found in Castle Street in 1860 and a new dedicated gallery space was opened in 1897 as "The Scottish Gallery". The gallery has been situated on Dundas Street since 1992. The Scottish Gallery celebrated 175 Years of Art in 2017.
I hope you have enjoyed reading about the new exhibition Between The Dream And Waking, and are inspired to go, see it.