Invest in a trip to this joyous exhibition
When I started writing about art in 2006, I compiled a feature called “50 Scottish artists to invest in”. It brought it home to me how many brilliant collectable artists there were in our country.
One was Ayrshire-based painter Charles Jamieson. His “sunlit landscapes” were mainly sold in London and abroad. Collectors, I noted back then, included author John le Carré , actor Harry Enfield and the Kuwaiti Royal Family.
The art world in Scotland is a village and I ended up getting to know Jamieson.
A past president of Paisley Art Institute, he is a great supporter of fellow artists. Not only has he mentored many artists over the years, he has supported them by buying their work.
The Glasgow School of Art-trained artist is also an actor. Among many diverse roles, he spent six years in the ’80s in popular STV soap opera, Take The High Road, playing Ruari Galbraith.
It was the financial security Take The High Road offered which first gave Jamieson time and space to paint.
His work is rarely exhibited at scale in Scotland but a major retrospective of his work, staged to mark his 70th birthday, has opened at the Maclaurin Art Gallery in Ayr.
The exhibition, which is on until October 16, offers an opportunity to appreciate the range of his output. Jamieson (pictured below) studied sculpture and there are examples of his three dimensional work on show as well as the quick-fire sketches he loves to do of people.
Then there’s his paintings. Studies made during world travels and here in Scotland are developed in his home studio into joyously colourful canvases. Be it works such as Summer Fields, depicting fields surrounding his home in Dunlop, or Memories Of Travel, created during lockdown, there is a joie de vivre to all Jamieson paints. @charlesjamiesonartist on Instagram