In this blog, Art Collection volunteer Patrick takes us through his journey of experiencing the artwork ‘Desert Landscape’ by Alison McGill.
“‘I prefer to leave the interpretation of my paintings up to the individual, hoping to evoke a sense of calm through my work and to offer an escape to the viewer – a chance to reflect and gain a new perspective on life.’” – Alison McGill
As I approach the Pathfoot Building, the first artwork that greets me, almost as if reaching out to me, is the painting ‘Desert Landscape’ by Alison McGill. I stop to take a look through a large glass window. I feel the need to get closer to this painting – naturally to take a closer look. And, hopefully to answer my own question, how is this painting contributing to my being, right now?
What is at first striking about this piece, upon first glance, is the colour Red Ochre – catching the immediate attention of my eyes, beaming out like a lighthouse, as though from elsewhere. From where I am standing, only a few metres away, I can feel McGill’s fluid brush strokes and in particular, one stroke becoming autumn itself. Human moment of looking, transcended. Passionately spread here and there, reaching the far edges of my mind and body as I look, think, feel and walk my way to the entrance of the building. Something of the energy of this painting has entered my mind, the web of life through the uniqueness of human expression. There is this metaphysical quality about the painting, a kind of warmth. Like being in the inside of a cave, perhaps?
Inside the building and as close as I can now be with the artist’s work of art, I get the sense that the painting is made up of the same rock foundations as the Pathfoot Building – rock is almost everywhere in this painting. In 2004, McGill was awarded the Alexander Graham Munro Travel Award (by the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour) and travelled to America to begin creating her unique set of paintings and drawings. McGill started in Arizona and covered ‘3,500 miles on mainland USA through Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada before flying to Kauai and finally Hawaii Main Island.’ Still looking, I experience a moment of uncertainty, unsure of where I am? Or, rather how to be in the presence of this painting? I feel lost, I am struggling to see the difference between land, sea and sky. What does McGill want me to see, discover, or rather rediscover in this moment, with her?
From a geological perspective, I think that location is irrelevant for McGill, in the way that she has brought to the surface of the canvas, surface of mountains, rivers and skies through paint. Textures and feelings come together. Universal, within the complex language of natural appearances. It might not therefore be a coincidence that the Scottish Highlands was once part of the Caledonian Mountains and that McGill has exemplified this truth for us, a shared landscape. Element of oneness, humanity – as I look and keep on looking. McGill could have perhaps painted the same painting from any rural location in Scotland today.
Buildings are like mountains, cottages like hills when one has walked and explored the Scottish Highlands today. Paintings are therefore like leaves, like the leaf of a forest or woodland, deeply imbedded with scent. Fundamentally, most contemporary artists want to achieve this in their work, however abstract their works become. Imprint of some kind (equal to nature) like the end of a season – a life finally lived. New beginnings, the formation of a new mountain, unwalked, undiscovered. How do I get close to McGills language, which feels so close to nature?
In 1995, McGill was first introduced to the technique of ‘mixing’ pigment and paraffin wax by art teacher Victoria Crowe whilst studying at the Edinburgh College of Art. McGill today has mastered this technique in the way she continues to allow pigment and wax to ‘flow and evolve’ through her work. Representing, for example the ‘drying crust of the earth’s surface, its minerals and sweeping fault lines.’ Such uniqueness, hasn’t come easy for McGill, it has taken hard work and dedication, a technique that has only developed through years of practice – looking and feeling and back again. A kind of archaeological dig with an artist’s palette knife – ‘melting the layers of the painting to reveal multiple layers of melded colours’ inspired by the Earth’s geology. Hunting and gathering her way through natural landscapes – in search of the next surface, the next canvas. Keeping herself and others warm along the way. Taking with her, the ‘earth contours, rock strata and impressions of the land’ in its infinite ‘states’ – awaiting paint.
McGill has demonstrated clearly to me, in this painting, that home within herself, a place she can call “home” – inscribed within rock. And so, the artist returns, after travelling far and wide, with their artworks in one hand and easel in another. Drawings and paintings, that crucially represent the work of finding that unique home and the art of telling that story through art itself, where home for a while could not be found. Kind of resistance of displacement, where in the presence of nature, one can belong – almost immediately.
And so, I get out my sketchbook, wanting to get as close as possible to the surface of McGill’s painting and to try and find that home within myself. Using charcoal, I sketch without looking at the page. Feeling my way through McGill’s homeland, in search of a story of some kind. I begin to trace, or rather retrace the surface of this painting, the story of both the landscape itself (in its earliest beginning) and the painting in its moments of creativity. I am trying to get to the roots of this geological painting, the layers of time depicted through McGill’s unique expression of pigment and paraffin wax, a sensation and then finally, a feeling. A unique moment of being.
At times, I sense life and its immensity in the presence of her painting. Yet I am still trying to find a way in somehow, a direction of some kind, that way home.
Carefully, I spread Cadmium Red from my watercolour paint brush and a little French Ultramarine. Spread loosely, across the surface and edges of my smooth cartridge paper alongside my charcoal markings. It’s hard to know where McGill’s landscape paintings begin and end, the flow and intensity of paint used, range of colours, beyond impasto. Perhaps, the sensation of gravity in her brush strokes is being made available to me unware, as she tries to blend the intrinsic viewpoints of our eyes with the abstract (aerial perspective) as I naturally try to find a place to rest them. Looking down the painting, I feel I am being submerged, going deeper underground into rock. Somewhere, I guess within the human heart, like the glow of a fire under a starry night sky.
McGill’s work has challenged my way of seeing and looking. Not knowing in each moment, how best to decide what one is really seeing before a vast landscape, she is letting me know this vital piece of information from a point of survival. Entering the unknown – she has gone beyond the seeing territory of the human eye, as simply an optical instrument.
Slowing down, waiting for the watercolours to dry, returning back to my desk, I realised through McGill’s brush strokes, the spontaneous marks, the bubbles of wax, the colours, the undulating shapes, the elements, the conflict of energy and light blue sky against the geological patterns and layers of our Earth’s beginning – McGill had successfully shown me “the way” home and equally how I get to that home within myself – namely that of a place filled with human warmth. And that colours, like Red Ochre, can make us feel at home and that when we feel at home as human beings, it does have meaning, however transient the moment. But most importantly, we need home like we need colour, when faced with the hardest of realities of the human condition.
McGill’s painting has contributed to the quality of my life. Imagine the moment, the sunlight, for example, as she painted, capturing a tone of deep red, brought to me from the other side of the globe, a red that is lasting, full of life, here in this moment for me to enjoy. Colours like mountains therefore, remain. Their essence and sense of permanence cannot be taken away (or changed) and nor can the roof over which McGill’s painting today has survived and has nestled firmly into the interior of Pathfoot. One can only be inspired to find the same home McGill has found, somewhere within ourselves that is waiting to be rediscovered.
Artist biography:
Born 1974. Alison McGill lives and works in Edinburgh and has been a practicing artist since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1998. Her central subject is the Scottish landscape and shores, which she creates in her distinctive abstract style. Alison is also a regular exhibitor at Society and Commercial Gallery group exhibitions throughout the UK and has been showing with the Scottish Gallery since 1997. Her works are held in private and public collections worldwide.
University of Stirling Art Collection acquired two of Alison McGill’s paintings. ‘Desert Landscape’ and ‘Spring Landscape’ was purchased in 2005.
