Gracefield Cafe exhibition Sylvan Scenes and Shoreline Shadows, Andrew McKean
Written by admin on September 6, 2012
A new exhibition opens in the café gallery at Gracefield on Tuesday 11 September by Gatehouse-based artist Andrew McKean.
This exhibition features water thinned acrylic paintings of the beautiful Galloway landscape, with particular emphasis on the artist’s recent exploration of woodland and coastal scenes, alongside some earlier architectural subjects.
Andrew McKean was born in London in 1948 and studied architecture at Edinburgh University, graduating in 1973. After working for a short time in private practice, he joined the Scottish Development Department and spent a 25 year Civil Service career working in a number of different posts. He accepted an offer of early retirement in 2001, partly in order to pursue his long-standing interest in art, and moved home from Edinburgh to Galloway in 2007. He has been a member of the Scottish Society of Architect Artists since 2002 and since then has exhibited regularly with the SSAA.
Not surprisingly, Andy’s work covers architectural subjects, as well as gardens, landscapes and seascapes. His paintings often feature the strong compositional effects produced by patterns of bright sunlight and deep shadow on weathered masonry, stones or rocks, contrasted with the soft textures and bright colours of vegetation. Although originally a watercolourist, Andy now works mainly in water-thinned acrylics, exploiting the density and scope for layering available in that medium and the effects that it can produce in combination with the rough texture of watercolour paper.
Now that Andy is based in Gatehouse, he has been producing new work responding to the wealth of ideal subjects readily available, including the lovely scenery of the Galloway Hills and Solway Coast, as well as its numerous monuments and historic houses, and the wonderful quality of light. His recent work shows an increasing emphasis on landscape, not only as a setting for architecture, but also as the primary subject in its own right, and he has been working on a series of paintings depicting woodland and coastal scenes. You can see more of his work at www.andrewmckeanarts.co.uk
Entry to Gracefield is FREE and the gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am -5pm. The exhibition continues until 13 October at Café Hubbub, Gracefield Arts Centre, 28 Edinburgh Road, Dumfries – see www.dumgal.gov.uk/gracefield for more details and where to find us.
