Though diverse and varied in his artistic influences, David Martin’s signature style is striking in its originality, clarity and beauty, culminating in work that makes him one of the twentieth century’s most important Scottish painters. Born in 1922, Martin trained at the Glasgow School of Art, working with prominent artists such as Hugh Adam Crawford, Ian Fleming and David Donaldson, all of whom had a strong bearing on his development as a landscape and still life painter.

Originally interested in portraiture, Martin moved on to the sparsely populated Scottish landscapes and strong, pure still life that he is known for, via his interest in textile design taught by the Scottish designer Robert Stewart.Working with Stewart a few years after graduating from the Glasgow School of Art, Martin used his time with the designer to develop his technique as a painter, simplifying and emboldening his portrayal of objects and landscapes, yet maintaining the elegance and visual appeal that is so crucial to the aesthetic success of design work. Such was Martin’s active understanding of this technique, that a textile design of his was selected to be exhibited at the Design Centre, Glasgow by the city’s Arts Council in 1949.

Upon examination, the visual influence of textile design and material is indeed apparent in Martin’s work; the strength of line giving a fabric-like quality to the painting, as if the canvas is swathed in a thick, layered blanket of bright colours and bold patterning. Simultaneously, lighter and more delicate brushwork flickers across the surface of the canvas, adding depth and bridging the gap between abstraction and realism that is inherent to Martin’s aesthetic direction. ‘My work is ultimately based upon what I see, but I extract its abstract qualities and use them to my own ends,’ he says, citing the work of Henri Hayden and Graham Sutherland as important predecessors of this method. Actively drawing out abstraction from landscapes and still life adds a layer of poignant emotional connection to the subject, subtly removed as it is from the physical reality. This technique also echoes that of Cubism, an approach that Martin interweaves with his own perception to put his personal interpretation upon it.

Martin’s still life retains its Cubist feel in its flat, stark, simplification of forms; we are encouraged to notice not the objects themselves but their assembly into something beautiful and whole. Contrastingly, subject matter for such unpredictable landscapes as Scotland’s is sketched and photographed on location, and developed in the studio, allowing Martin to process and transform these everyday settings, though splendid in their own right, into stunning scenes that articulate his appreciation of them.

Rosie Willmot, Lemon Street Gallery 2011

Bruce McLean is one of the major figures of contemporary British Art. Born in 1944 he studied at Glasgow School of Art (1961-63) and at St. Martin’s in London (1963-66), where he was taught by Sir Anthony Caro, Phillip King, Bill Tucker, Isaac Witkin and Peter Atkins. The course was very rigorous and encouraged a questioning enquiry into the nature of sculpture past, present and future. McLean responded by making sculpture out of rubbish, water and other impermanent materials, and by using his own body to make action sculptures- and impersonate sculptures by others. Also produced were photographic works in which he often appeared. McLean lead the development of Conceptual art in Britain in the 1960s, often working outside in the urban and suburban landscape. Some of his works brilliantly sent up the solemnity of the art world and mocked established art forms. In 1972 he was given a one-day retrospective at the Tate Gallery at the age of 27 (King for a Day).

McLean’s work is in a permanent state of movement and invention; from the late 1960s, his range of media has included painting, printmaking, sculpture, film, photography drawing and live work; in all of which humour, scepticism and wit are central. His work seeks to challenge the concept of ‘sculpture’ and indeed of ‘art’ by creating work that questions establishment thinking, materials and methods of display.
After St. Martin’s McLean went on to teach at numerous art schools including The Slade School of Fine Art, where he became Head of Graduate Painting (2002-2010). He has obtained international recognition for his paintings and prints, work with film, theatre and books. McLean’s bold and confident approach to printmaking proved influential to his contemporaries and also to a generation of younger artists. The making of prints and posters has been a central aspect of his work and continues to inform his sculptural investigations.

His work is in private and public collections worldwide including the Tate Gallery, Arts Council of Great Britain, Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Museum of Modern Art, Edinburgh and the British Council. He has had numerous one-man shows in Europe, North America, and Japan.
McLean has participated in many major international exhibitions since the 1960s, highlights include: When Attitudes Become Form, KunstHalle, Bern (1969), Information- Museum of Modern Art, New York (1970), The British Avant Garde, New York Cultural Centre , New York (1971), Documenta 6, Kassel (1977), Art in the Seventies, Biennale, Venice (1980), The 4th Sydney Biennale, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1981), A New Spirit in Painting, Royal Academy of Arts, London, Zeitgeist, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (1982), Documenta 7, Museum Fredericianum, Kassel (1982), Thought and Action, Laforet Museum, Tokyo (1983), New Art, Tate Gallery, London (1983), An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York (1984), The Critical Eye, Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven (1984), 11 European Painters, National Gallery, Athens (1985), British Art in the 20th Century, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1987), Great British Art Show, McLennan Gallery, Glasgow (1990), Out of Action; Between Performance and the Object, 1949-79, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1997), Bruce McLean and William Alsop, Two Chairs, Milton Keynes Gallery (2002), Body and Void: Echoes of Moore in Contemporary Art, The Henry Moore Foundation, Hertfordshire 2014). McLean was awarded the John Moores Painting Prize in 1985.

Now approaching his seventh decade McLean’s energy, vision and work ethic remain undimmed. 2014 saw two major exhibitions exploring his work: ‘Bruce McLean: Another Condition of Sculpture’ at Leeds Art Gallery, and ‘Bruce McLean: Sculpture, Painting, Photography, Film’ at Firstsite in Colchester, both shows included works spanning five decades. McLean’s work featured in the Royal Scottish Academy’s annual exhibition in 2016 and can currently be seen in Tate’s ‘Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979’ exhibition. He lives and works in west London.

Rosie was apprenticed variously with sculptors, and studied figurative sculpture in clay, wood and stone at John Cass and City and Guilds Art Schools in London.
She has exhibited widely and many of her pieces are held in private collections. Her early practice as a somatic therapist and in related care fields have helped inform her work.

‘I work with an ancient and beautiful material whose qualities challenge and enrich my experience of making sculpture. I carve limestones, marbles, alabasters, some being formed in the Jurassic age 140 million years ago and each with its own unique character. Stone often holds a profound sense of stillness and presence.

The sculptures I carve invite touch and often express a sense of symmetry that doesn’t seek to challenge but rather to reassure.

I am conscious of being part of an ancient tradition of stone-carvers and draw inspiration from this rich heritage as well as from the world around me.

I am fascinated by form; by its structure, its surface tension, by the shape of the space that it inhabits, by its changing qualities within different landscapes and in different lights. Carving is an endless exploration of these relationships.

Selected Exhibitions:

Withiel House Sculpture Garden, Cornwall

Coughton Court Gardens, Warwickshire

In the grounds of Buckfast Abbey, Devon

The Garden Gallery, Stockbridge, Hampshire

Moncrieff-Bray Gallery, Petworth, Sussex

‘On Form 2010’ Asthall Manor, Oxfordshire

Ludlow Summer Exhibition, Shropshire

Devon Open Studios

St. Wilfrid’s Hospice 2009 Open Art Competition Pallant House, Chichester, Sussex

Fresh Air 2009 Quenington, Glos.

2009 Brighton Art Fair

Coombe Gallery, Dartmouth, Devon

Millstream 2007/8 Sculpture Garden, Bishopstrow, Wiltshire

Delamore House Cornwood, Devon – Early Summer Exhibition

The Gallery, Dartington Campus with SouthWest Sculptors

The Brownston Gallery, Modbury, Devon

Royal West of England Academy, Bristol – Open Sculpture Exhibition

Quartz Arts Festival Queen’s College, Taunton, Somerset

The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle upon Tyne

Beaford Arts – Art at the Red House, Exeter, Devon

BlindArt Exhibition 2005 Sense and Sensuality at the Royal College of Art, London

Brian Bearne Memorial prize 2002: South West Academy Open Exhibition