John Lowrie Morrison’s 50-year love affair with Tayvallich celebrated with an exhibition of new work inspired by the area’s beauty

It was an autumn day more than 50 years ago that John Lowrie Morrison first discovered the place he now calls home. The acclaimed artist was studying at the Glasgow School of Art when he drove to a place called Tayvallich that his father had told him he had to see. Now, on Saturday, August 14 John will be celebrating the village and its surrounding coast and countryside in an exhibition at the Archway, Lochgilphead, entitled Tayvallich and Environs. ‘My Mum and Dad used to cycle all over Scotland on their tandem and it was this place Dad recommended I take a drive to,’ John explains. ‘It was the late 1960s, I remember it was autumn and the beauty of the place just caught me. I fell in love with Tayvallich that first day and have been painting it ever since.’

Although John has been depicting this part of Argyll for decades there is a freshness to his work that instills every painting he creates. ‘Each time I paint this place, it’s different,’ he says. ‘I love bringing things from the past into the present with a fresh new painting.

‘I have an incredible memory for colours and places and it’s that feeling, that memory, that I paint.’

John explains his process is to go through the thousands of sketches and photographs he stores in fire-proof metal drawers. “It comes right away to me what I should be painting,’ he says. ‘When I pick up a drawing or photo and I see it’s 25 years ago I want to paint the scene as it was, but bring it back to life, bring it into the present. Sometimes the paintings are gestating inside me for that length of time.’ To see the fruits of John’s love affair with Tayvallich and Environs pop into the Archway, Lochgilphead from August 14.