Artist Alison Watt at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery

A SIGNIFICANT new body of work by artist Alison Watt, (pictured left) who is widely regarded as one of the leading painters working in the UK today, is to be exhibited for the first time at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (SNPG).

Watt, best known for her beautiful and intricate large-scale paintings of drapery and folds, will exhibit a series of new paintings made in response to the practice of the 18th century portrait painter Allan Ramsay (1713-84) in Alison Watt: A Portrait without Likeness.

The exhibiton will explore Watt’s continuing fascination with Ramsay’s portraits, and is the fruit of a long period of study into paintings, and his drawings and sketchbooks. Watt has long been an admirer of Ramsay’s portraits of women, in particular the intensely personal images of his first and second wives, Anne Bayne and Margaret Lindsay of Evelick. Both portraits will be shown alongside Watt’s new work.

Watt said: “Looking into an artist’s archive is to view the struggle that takes place to make a work of art. A painting is a visual record of the inside of the artist’s mind. A painting is something that takes place over time; it is not static. To look at a work of art is to engage with an idea, and that is not a one sided activity. It’s more of a conversation.”