Sunday Times, 28
September 2003
Culture: How to canvass artistic success
One artist looks east, while another finds inspiration at home, writes
Lucy Sweet
‘I used to do complicated messes,” smiles Blair Thomson,
referring to the paintings that are dotted around his studio, a large room in
the old Templeton carpet factory in the east end of Glasgow. “Now I do
simple ones.”
These paintings, which will form part of his solo show at the Stenton Gallery
in East Lothian, are disintegrating structures held together with chunks of
thick paint. One is drying on a makeshift table of paint cans.
His sketchbooks are full of ink-and-brush drawings of towering temples and
rickety railway bridges, and delicate works on paper line the walls. Although
his palette of pale, diffused colours is inspired by the Scottish landscape,
his calligraphic motifs are heavily influenced by Japanese culture. Thomson,
23, is a regular visitor to Japan — his girlfriend lives there — and
he is an avid student of Eastern philosophy.
“I like the simplicity and clarity of haiku,” he explains.
“It’s pared down, made up of 17 syllables. That’s what I try to
do in my painting. I’m trying to make it direct and not overworked.”
Thomson graduated from Glasgow School of Art just last year and has
effortlessly made the transition from student to commercially successful
artist. He sold every piece in his degree show, making almost £13,000 and
now he sells four or five canvasses a month through commercial galleries.
Barbara Christie, owner of the Stenton gallery, praises his professionalism,
and the Royal Glasgow Institute took the rare step of making Thomson part of an
exhibition at the McLellan Galleries while he was still at college.
What distinguishes Thomson from other talented graduates is his nose for
business. While his art school contemporaries were trying to fit their social
lives around organising their degree shows, he was busy establishing contacts.
The result was interest from a number of gallery owners including Sophie
Montgomery in London. “I am ambitious, definitely,” he says.
Wendy Sutherland, who is appearing in a parallel solo exhibition at the
Stenton gallery, has already had solo exhibitions in England and Canada, and is
booked up until 2005, working on a commission for Skibo Castle, as well as
another show. “We can’t get enough of Wendy,” says Christie.
“We’ve got 42 works in the show and they’ll probably all
sell.” After completing a Master of Fine Arts at Edinburgh College of Art
five years ago, Sutherland relocated back to her home of Brora in the
Highlands, where she produces vivid and lyrical landscapes, from intricate
networks of tree branches in white pencil, to sweeping, large-scale seascapes.
“They’re abstract, but they have a certain amount of
representation,” says 28-year-old Sutherland. She graduated with first
class honours and won a Landscape award from the Royal Scottish Academy.
Sutherland now works from a studio attached to her house. “I have thought
about one day travelling and doing landscapes in other places but there’s
so much more to do here — the weather and the light are never the
same.” Thomson has set his sights further afield: “I want to be an
international artist, not just show in Scotland. Although Scotland is the
origin of my work, and it’s important, I’d really like to exhibit in
New York or Japan.” Somehow, you know it’s only a matter of
time. |