Each of these boundary-spaces, when realised in McGlashan’s paintings, seems to give only one suggestion though, that of crossing over and passing into the space beyond... the portal and the doorway in McGlashan’s vision never appears shut.
Galleries 2 & 3 see the first presentation at Frestonian Gallery of works by highly acclaimed painter Barry McGlashan. In these small works on panel, the motif of the single figure in the landscape recurs – each having its own sense of quiet intimacy, as the viewer is compelled into empathy for the figure held in the moment... perhaps observing from a distance as if a single movement might disturb the scene... or perhaps placing oneself in the position of the figure observed.
These miniature worlds elude firm placement in geographic terms. In McGlashan’s larger works on canvas, such as Satellites, the subject is often recognisably very much one place or another. Here, however, the sense is not so much of a place depicted but of a moment half-remembered. Each has the quality of seeming to describe a scene that could have only existed for a single second – a glance this way or that, or a the way light briefly catches. Works such as Lonesome Pine could as easily be located in the High Cascades of Oregon or the Nanling Mountains of China. The silently pausing figure in A Rough Plan for Nostalgia could have been stood there a hundred years ago or just yesterday.
McGlashan’s work of recent years has exemplified the breadth of his curiosity and vision. His subjects appear often at thresholds, sometimes literal – in the forms of windows, gateways and harbours – sometimes metaphorical – in the sense of ‘the frontier’ and also sometimes between the two... the ragged edges of forests, the shifting contours of the shoreline, or the indefinable beginnings of a mountain range. Each of these boundary-spaces, when realised in McGlashan’s paintings, seems to give only one suggestion though, that of crossing over and passing into the space beyond... the portal, the doorway, in McGlashan’s vision never appears shut.
Notes on the artist:
Barry McGlashan was born in 1974 in Aberdeen on the North-East Coast of Scotland, where he lives and works. McGlashan studied painting at Gray’s School of Art, graduating in 1996. He taught in the painting department at Gray’s between 1998 and 2005. In 2001, McGlashan was awarded The Alastair Salvesen Scholarship through the Royal Scottish Academy. Examples of his work are held in numerous private and public collections including Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland; The Scottish Society, New York, USA; and the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland.
