Brush with fame

Published on Thursday 21 May 2009 17:43

PAINTING IS DEAD – SO WE'RE told every now and then by someone (often an artist) seeking a bit of easy publicity. It's outmoded, outdated, left behind in the conceptual revolution. Yeah, right.

You don't have to have been around for long to notice that reports of the death of painting are greatly exaggerated. As one artist develops a theory on how redundant it is, another picks up a brush.

For artists who paint, it's a way of expressing and exploring the world, of imagining and working out ideas, all those things artists do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We've all seen contemporary paintings that look as dead as a doornail, and Caravaggios that look like they were painted last week.

Four years ago, John Lowrie Morrison took the ambitious step of launching a new painting prize. He is one of Scotland's best-selling artists and spends every available hour wrestling at his easel. He feared not the death of painting, but its slow demise. As cool conceptualism advanced, he asked, how could young artists be encouraged to see painting as an option?

The Jolomo Awards for Scottish Landscape Painting, which have a total prize money of 30,000, is one of the largest privately funded art prizes in the UK. The first awards were made in 2007, a tough job from a strong and diverse field (I know, I was a judge), and the second set of winners (an equally tough job) will be announced on 12 June.

This year's seven shortlisted artists will exhibit their work next weekend at Lloyds TSB headquarters in Edinburgh. The diversity of their approaches indicates the vitality of the medium.

They represent a spectrum of styles, from the careful, traditional brushwork of Maurice Forsythe-Grant to the light-filled expressionism of Rosanne Barr. Alastair Strachan looks at cities from above, while Keith Salmon is inspired by walks in the wilderness.

They have little in common except that all are compelled to wrestle with the paintbrush as a means of expression. One of the shortlisted artists, Claudia Massie, seems to sum it up when she says: "I am captivated by the intriguing, unending challenge of painting the Scottish landscape."

All are part of a tradition that began with Nasmyth and Landseer, and continued through Gillies, Eardley and John Houston. The artists are inspired by that tradition, but are not slaves to it. They are exploring, inventing, doing the things artists have always done.

The aim of the awards is to support them as they do that. The inaugural winner, Anna King, is being heralded as one of Scotland's most interesting young painters. All of the 2007 shortlist are forging ahead with the difficult, compelling business of painting.

As we look ahead to this year's awards, there will still be those who question their relevance. But both the painters and nay-sayers will go on making art, all of which makes the world a more interesting place.

&#149 The Jolomo Awards Shortlist Exhibition is at LloydsTSB, 120 George Street, Edinburgh, 29-31 May.