Greer’s talent in full bloom

Stirling-based artist Greer Ralston has her sister to thank for her latest exhibition.

A little over a year ago the popular painter’s sister Aileen challenged her to paint some flowers.

Historically flower painting was an occupation often disregarded as lesser, or as the work of women and botanists but Greer took to it with passion and has made it her own.

And that led to her latest exhibition at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum ‘Passions and Peonies’, which opens today (Friday).

Greer, who graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1987, is well known as an award-winning painter of equestrian and human figures.

She has works in public and private collections in the UK and abroad, including those of international sportsmen and entrepreneurs, and she was chosen by the British Show Jumpers Association to paint the horses of Olympic gold medal winner Scott Brash.

With her sister Aileen, Ralston Fine Art markets her original works and prints.

The Ralston family have had a long association with breeding and riding horses and many of her paintings incorporate both her passion for the figure and her lifelong love for animals.

A number of her paintings feature horses and dogs owned by the family.

She is also known as a painter of dancers, combining her figurative strengths with movement to reflect the skill of the dancers and their passage through life.

This time, however, flowers are the centrepiece of her work.

Greer said:“I have attempted to take the flowers away from domestic decoration and portray them as bold, beautiful images that make people stop and get lost in their shapes.”

Smith trustees chairman Colin O’Brien said:“The exhibition is also a celebration of Greer’s lifelong commitment to art, which started at the age of four when she was given a paint box as a present by Lord Wheatley.

“At the age of 16, she won the gold medal in the children’s art competition at Kelvingrove with an accomplished drawing of the sculpture of Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham.

“Her work has developed in many different directions and the Stirling Smith is delighted to show case this latest phase of her work.’

John Coutts, poet in residence at the Stirling Smith, has written a poem to welcome the exhibition.

Passions and Peonies runs until March 26.

I have attempted to portray the flowers as bold, beautiful images

Greer Ralston