Introduction to A Picture of a Celt

Curator Amy Waugh introduces the exhibition JD Fergusson : Picture of a Celt. Fergusson was a prominent figure in the Scottish Colourists school of painting, and was widely considered as an influential figure in modern British painting in the early 20th Century.
JD Fergusson : Picture of a Celt is on at the Fergusson Gallery, Perth, until the 15th June, 2014.
A partnership between the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council.

Virtual tour: Magic Carpet Exhibition

This art news clip comes from Art in Scotland TV

Curator Amy Waugh introduces artist Debbie Lawson’s exhibition ‘Magic Carpet’, featuring sculptural works of flora and fauna, a fox, bear and a flock of seagulls, covered in patterned carpet. Lawson’s inspiration for this exhibition is drawn from the literary classic, Arabian Nights.
Magic Carpet is on at the Fergusson Gallery, Perth, until the 15th March, 2014.

A Picture of a Celt

John Duncan Fergusson was fiercely proud of his Perthshire ancestry. He placed great importance on it, increasingly seeing this ‘Celtic spirit’ as the main source that fuelled his creativity. Both his parents were Perthshire Ferguson’s, although his father’s
name was spelt with one ‘s’ and his mother with a double ‘s’. Around 1900 Fergusson consciously adopted the double ‘s’ spelling of his name, as he felt this reflected more closely the meaning, ‘Son of Fergus’. Already exploring his Celtic origins, this made reference to the legendary Irish King, Fergus Mòr Mac Earca (Fergus the Great) who was reportedly the founder of Scotland.
As well as his artistic legacy, there is much evidence of his interest in Scotland and his Highland heritage in his vast archive, which is now held in The Fergusson Gallery collection.
In the 1950s, Fergusson began to look back on his life and make notes about his career, with the intention of writing an autobiography. Although this project was never realised, his handwritten notes frequently make reference to his early career, memories of the Highlands, Druids and Gaelic.
Fergusson’s notes also detail many childhood memories, including holidays in Perthshire. In 1960, he wrote ‘Chapter from an Autobiography’ which appeared in the Saltire Review. In it, he gave the following account, about a childhood experience in Perth.
When I was a small boy, I was standing on the North Inch of Perth watching the movement of the water. I looked away for a moment and saw a very dark man ‘loping’ along towards me - yes, loping is the word for his action. He came directly towards me and said ‘Hullo! My little dark-eyed stranger - you’ll never stay here - you’ll roam!’ and passed on, loped away and left me watching the movement of the water. The movement of water has fascinated me all my life, partly because an uncle who lived in the Highlands pointed out that the appearance of the surface was greatly affected by the fish feeding. He was a famous angler in his district and had lived by a river all his life and loved it.
In the same article, he goes on to explain how he felt that his creativity, whether written or visual, stems from an ancient, metaphysical past:
…my training hasn’t been in writing, it has been in painting and I can only write as I paint: impressions and material used in the attempt to express
what I feel today come, not necessarily from what I have seen or felt today (as I do not gauge time by the clock or calendar) but may go much further back than the North Inch of Perth

Exhibition starts December 7 2013 at the Fergusson Gallery, Perth

Magic Carpet - Debbie Lawson

Red Gull - Debbie Lawson

Exciting and intriguing exhibition of new work by Debbie Lawson, winner of the 2013 J D Fergusson Arts Award. 
The show, titled 'Magic Carpet' presents a series of new sculptures partly inspired by the Arabian Nights stories. Many of the works on display use the unusual medium of patterned carpet to cover the sculptural forms.
The Exhibition starts on Saturday November 23 at the Fergusson Gallery.

Debbie Lawson: 'I think of my work as a series of episodes that take you on a journey through the landscape of the domestic interior, where popular narratives and personal histories are intertwined so that the imaginary and material reality seem inseparable. Visual codes collide, giving form to new animated hybrids with a quietly sinister inner life and aspirations to be bigger than themselves. At the heart of the work is a focus on the cultural traditions surrounding everyday objects – specifically those found in the aspirational home. And although it may look elaborate, the impetus behind the work comes from a stripped-down idea of sculpture: the patterned carpet I use as an outer surface emphasises the innate qualities of form while at the same time disrupting them so that it appears to alternate between three dimensions and two, creating a visual slippage. My interest in seeing the monumental through the prism of the small-scale or domestic comes from a preoccupation with a specific form of narrative, where the central protagonist, a seemingly naive and unassuming character, embarks on a series of episodic adventures, seeing through the apparently innocuous to expose hidden, and often darker, or stranger, meanings. For Magic Carpet, I have created a new series of sculptures partly inspired by the Arabian Nights – a classic of literature whose interwoven stories have a textural, multi-layered quality that feels appropriate to my choice of material.'