by Karen Welding
www.karenweldingart.com
07715550727
I graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee with a Bdes (hons) in constructed textiles in 1995. I have always enjoyed sketching and working with wool and threads, but in the past couple of years, I have begun to explore painting.
I love texture and bright colours and seem to be drawn more to landscape scenes that are loosely based on Scottish cities and coastal harbours. I like to include adventurous Lowry inspired stick figures exploring their environment and having fun.
I spent my early years living abroad in Oman and Borneo and spent a few years travelling around Australia in my 20s. I’ve always been interested in travel and different cultures and colourful scenery from around the world. I’m now lucky enough to be working as a full-time artist and feel incredibly grateful to be able to do this. I like to create eye-catching work that is fun, bright, colourful, and that will stand out and will make others hopefully feel happy too.
by Dr. Donnie Ross
Dr. Donnie Ross has been an active member of Aberdeen Artists Society for 40 years, serving as President in 1990-92 and 2021-23. He was a founder-member of Grampian Hospitals Arts Trust, which he chaired for 10 years. He has been a flamenco guitarist (El Escocés) in a South London Chinese Restaurant and in a Stockholm nightclub, a medical officer at Brand’s Hatch Racetrack, a co-pilot in the Isle of Man air-race, a hospital consultant for 35 years, a medical director for 8 years and an Aberdeenshire crofter / tree planter for 40 years, now mixing Scottish native species with Sequoia and other giant redwoods.
In general, science and medicine abhor ambiguity, but art and creativity revel in generating alternative interpretations, constantly raising expectations only to subvert them. The twist in the tale or in the tune; the double take of visual phenomena, the pattern-matching hardwired into our every sensory modality, all of which by their very nature are vulnerable to playful subversion. So I believe if it ain’t subversive, it probably isn’t art!
A constant preoccupation for me has been how can we in our current era relate authentically to nature, to integrate our milieu intérieur with the external world. And maybe the crux of the problem lies in our emotional and neurophysiological evolution in mesolithic times, which could account for the dysphoria, the restless sense of unease that often afflicts us in cities, where we may feel shrunk, peripheralised and negated by the endless stony vistas, the crowd of unfriendly strangers, the haughty imposing buildings, and by all the desolate manmade spaces created in this appalling anthropocene age both in peacetime and war. Becoming aware of our essentially mesolithic nature, can we perhaps more specifically address our central need for meaningful environments which support rather than erode our sense of wellbeing? Is this what art might be about?
One can learn quite a lot in a lifetime of eighty years of constant observation of the world, self and others, and through the unceasing acquisition of skills; but at every turn the frontiers of one’s ignorance are starkly evident in every direction
Ach weel… For further information please see my experimental e-novel !Leonardo Mind for Modern Times, available as a free download from Apple Books:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/!leonardo-mind-for-modern/id541725141?mt=11
http://www.donnierossart.com
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/the-scottish-shed/id707709467?mt=11
by Geraldine McClure
Originally from Northern Ireland, I came to Scotland to study Medical Physics at Aberdeen University. I then pursued a career in Clinical Science at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Latterly, I studied B&W film photography through Gray’s School of Art short course programme. I went on to study a HND in photography at NESCOL in Aberdeen and then an honours degree in Photography at City of Glasgow College. The medium of photography provides an outlet for creativity, whether through documenting the world around me or through the use of alternative processes and printing techniques. I use both digital and film photography in my work.
The work ‘Graffiti’ presents a stage in an ongoing project inspired by the history, landscape, and community of the Braes of Glenlivet and The Scalan site in particular. This unique place offers much from a creative perspective and there is the fascinating challenge of distilling selected elements into photographic pieces that are reflective of its story. I am interested in aspects of photographic practice that arise from being involved with a community and the associated opportunity for collaborative working practices. The selection of print media is a creative decision determined by the work; for example photographic paper or fabric. This final piece is digitally printed on fabric and was made for the official opening of the North and South Mills by His Majesty King Charles III in September 2023.
The subsequent gallery represents a selection of images made in Arbroath in the summer of 2021 when pandemic restrictions had eased. Over a few day trips to the harbour area I made photographs; enjoying my freedom, documenting different aspects of the harbour and the manual process of using film and my medium format and 35mm cameras.
Website: https://www.rgmphotography.co.uk/
by Paul Raine
I’ve been a professional artist since leaving Gray’s in 1985 (age 37). Before that I worked as an illustrator for the oil industry, educational publishing and (many years ago) for Yorkshire Television. I have been a mental health care worker, and a lecturer at Aberdeen College and at Gray’s School of Art (ad hoc). Recently I retired from Roevig Folkehoejskole in Denmark, where I was the senior art teacher for over a decade.
Over the years I have shown my paintings in the Roger Billcliffe Gallery, the Rendezvous, Gallery Heinzel, the Whitehouse Gallery, Eion Stewart Fine Art, the Torrance Gallery and Gallery Q. These days many of my available paintings can be found at the Finzean Farm Shop and at the McEwan Gallery.
www.rainesflowerpaintings.uk
Instagram: john_paul_raine
by charles m smith
I’m a silversmith, I make beakers, teapots, coffee pots, boxes, plates, kilt belt buckles, plaid brooches. I do some enamelling, mostly on copper, and I make clocks using a battery movement, enamelled copper, wood and rivets.
by Helen Scaife
Helen Scaife is an experienced artist and art teacher focusing mainly on Painting and Drawing. She recently received a Micro-commission from the Friends of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums and is currently showing there her mixed media piece on global warming and rising sea levels called “Rising Pillars of Aberdeen”.
Over the years she has developed a deep interest or obsession with nature and movement, especially the movement of water. She uses charcoal, watercolour, acrylic and oil sometimes portraying people in the waves.
She has shown since graduating from Art College in Cardiff in Wales, London, Germany, Devon and most recently here in Scotland through NEOS and the Hyv Pop-Up Shop.
Helen runs classes locally after having 22 years experience teaching focusing on a range of media. If you are interested in joining her art classes here in Stonehaven please contact her directly.
www.helenscaife.com
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