‘Glasgow: The Art of the City’ is a two-day exhibition at New Glasgow Society’s shopfront venue on Argyle Street, in the heart of Finnieston. Local artists, Frank Boyle and Liz Reid have collaborated to showcase their unique expressions of place and people in and around the city; cafés and on buses, street corners and tenement views as well as some of Glasgow’s landmark buildings.
Both offer a unique response, fusing the show in subject matter and to a degree in their chosen media. In harmony, both artists are from the Glasgow area, work extensively on location – responding to the built environment and studied illustration and printing at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, although they did so at different times.
Liz left art college and went on to forge a career in local government prior to her first job on graduating, as Printmaker-in-Residence for Tayside Region’s country parks. Her work as a graphic designer has remained a constant, grounded very solidly in illustration. Nonetheless, Liz continued to draw throughout these years alongside what has become a very screen-based full-time occupation, more recently making the conscious assertion to pursue drawing, including ‘urban sketching’ city scenes and painting in her spare time. While often still detailed, her drawing style has become looser as an antidote to pixel-perfect work on computer.
Frank is an award-winning cartoonist and artist, working for DC Thomson & Co., before a move to London saw him freelance as an illustrator and later as a political cartoonist for the local and national press. On returning to Scotland, he continued, with work appearing in several newspapers including the Herald, Scotland on Sunday, Daily Record and Sunday Post. He now places more concentrated focus on drawing and painting – expressed in this exhibition of buildings in Glasgow, a reflection of his lifelong interest in architecture and working out of Wasps Artist’s Studios at the Briggait.
The paths of these artists may have crossed just a few years ago but their interest in the urban landscape unites them and in a very complimentary flow, not only in terms of subject matter, which of course they bring together for this exhibition. There is a wonderful synchronicity shown by both artists of capturing the dense and solid matter of earthy life, the man-made structures, the stone buildings, the people that hold their weight firmly to the ground beneath them in a wonderfully delicate, detailed and captivating way.
You can see more of Liz’s work and contact her for commissions or collaborations on Instagram: @lillliart
You can see more of Frank’s work on Instagram: @boylecartoon or at www.boylecartoon.com
Prints of the paintings are available, and commissions are welcome.
New Glasgow Society West, 1307 Argyle Street, on the weekend of 10 and 11 September 2022, open from 10am to 6pm.
The show will include original framed drawings and paintings, sketchbooks, prints and postcards. All work will be for sale.
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