The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Gallery marks leading artist’ s 70th birthday
The 70th birthday of Dundee-trained artist Robert Mcgilvray is being celebrated. Gallery Q in Nethergate, Dundee, is exhibiting his work until March 19.
Robert will be at the opening of the exhibition today, from 11.30am to 1.30pm, when there will also be birthday cake!
Robert was born in Glasgow in 1952.
He studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, graduating in 1975.
He was subsequently employed as a part time lecturer until 2014.
Over a 40-year career he taught in many departments including design, architecture, town planning and the school of fine art.
Robert co-founded the first WASP’S (workshop and artist’s studio Scotland Ltd) in Scotland and subsequently Meadowmill Studios in Dundee.
He was the co-ordinator of the Blackness Public Art Programme which became the long-running, widely recognised and pioneering Dundee Public Art Programme.
He also co-founded the Seagate Gallery, which was the catalyst for the current Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA).
His experience in public art led him to establish programmes in Coatbridge, Perth, Arbroath, and Ullapool Community School as well as strategies for Highland Council and South Lanarkshire Council.
He has presented papers and lectures throughout the UK, Northern Ireland, Finland and Alabama.
In 2002, he resumed his career as an artist and has exhibited in numerous group shows throughout the UK and Northern Ireland.
He has also had solo exhibitions in Dundee, Perth, Forfar, Glasgow and in Limerick, Republic of Ireland.
Lucinda Middleton of Gallery Q said: “The paintings of Robert Mcgilvray are in a sense abstract but at the same time are rooted in the reality of landscape.
“They are not landscape paintings in the accepted sense of that particular genre.
“They are more personal responses to a sense of place and the memory of an experience, often momentary, always different and transient: the biting east wind or the looming squall of the enveloping white mist, the haar.
“Vast distances are explored as well as the cool serenity that pervades the Scottish landscape, east and west.
“All of the paintings are journeys of memory and imagination, of recognition of the limitless space and special place that is here.”
Alongside Robert, Gallery Q is also exhibiting work from Margaret Evans, Morag Muir RSW, Lesley Skeates, Stuart Moir, Helen Welsh and John Paul Raine.
The exhibition ends on March 19. All work can be seen online at galleryq. co.uk