Georgina McMaster
One of Scotland’s foremost contemporary wildlife painters, Georgina McMaster, celebrating 20 years since graduating from art school, brings a new Solo Exhibition of work to the Strathearn Gallery, Crieff from 2nd April.
Surrounded by animals from a young age and brought up within a creative family, it was perhaps unsurprising that Georgina McMaster elected to pursue a career as a wildlife artist.
After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2002 and then completing a postgrad at Bath Spa University, Georgina juggled teaching and painting for eight years before deciding in 2012 to concentrate on her painting full-time.
Since then, Georgina hasn’t looked back and is now recognised as one of the country’s most distinctive and best-known wildlife artists painting today.
Her stunning bold and dynamic paintings are prized by art lovers worldwide for their dramatic colour and detail and most importantly, with wildlife paintings, their incredible ability to portray the character of each animal she paints.
Predominantly painting in oils on canvas, Georgina will often leave the background blank to concentrate the focus purely on the animal.
Painting wildlife brings many unique challenges and along with limited opportunity for travelling abroad in recent years (both due to the pandemic and also with a very young family to look after), Georgina has drawn inspiration from her large photographic archive as well as her local environment in rural Aberdeenshire.
Georgina McMaster’s new Solo Exhibition opens at 10am on the 2nd April 2022 at The Strathearn Gallery, Crieff and runs until 1st May 2022.
All works will also be available to view on the gallery website from 10am 2nd April: www.strathearn-gallery.com
Georgina will be attending the gallery for the opening on Saturday 2nd April during the afternoon so it’s a great opportunity to come along, enjoy the art and meet the artist.
“I normally take photographs of animals, as they don’t tend to sit still for very long! I’ve a huge collection of images I’ve taken over the years that I work from and it’s always great to look back for new inspiration. I tend not to sketch very much, preferring instead to just ‘get into’ the painting but I do like to sometimes play around with the composition first.
Having been an art teacher, I tend to follow the ‘rule of thirds’ or keep the main subject central – whatever suits it best. Painting living creatures, the goal is to always try and attempt to capture the character or soul of the animal which is why to me the eyes are so important. It’s obviously trickier with the likes of birds and small animals but larger animals are amazing because they always have so much depth and expression in their eyes which you can convey in the painting...”
Celebrating 20 years since graduating from art school, Georgina continues to be passionate about art, her painting and continuing to develop her style.
“I love painting and know I always will. It’s my dream job and I’m so lucky to be able to do something I love to do. Art can bring a viewer so much joy and paintings truly bring a room to life. It’s also a unique way to express yourself and it speaks volumes about a person and what they put on their wall. After the last few years, I’m also looking forward to attending exhibition openings again as meeting people and actually being able to stand in front of paintings and enjoy them is so much of the fun.”
Gallery hours: Monday - Saturday 10am - 5pm Sunday 12pm - 4pm
The Strathearn Gallery 32 West High Street Crieff, Perthshire, PH7 4DL, Scotland T: (01764) 656100