Scaling the Heights

Published on Tuesday 9 December 2008 18:33

ON THE mountains of Scotland last week, temperatures were well below zero and the weather changeable, verging on dangerous. But that wasn't enough to deter Jamie Hageman. In fact, for the artist and mountaineer, conditions were close to ideal.

"I think the mountains look their most impressive in the snow," he says, recalling how he braved temperatures of minus nine a few days ago to catch a "beautiful alpine glow" around the Buchaille Etive Mor in the early morning. "It looked like Everest. I came back with lots of inspiration."

Meanwhile, many miles from his home near Fort William, Hageman's striking landscapes are beginning to catch the eye of London art collectors. Art dealer Amanda Brock of Caledoniart first took his work there in March, and was snowed under with interest from buyers.

"It was incredible," she recalls. "While we were hanging the show on the Sunday afternoon, we put Jamie's painting of Ben Nevis at dawn on an easel in the window. People were parking their cars on the double yellow lines just so they could look at it. That was sold while most of the other work was still in packages.

"Jamie had given me ten pieces. After they all sold, I phoned him to see if he had any more and he managed to send me one more painting that he'd just finished. He sent it down as an unframed canvas and I had five people saying they wanted to buy it although they had no idea what it looked like."

Hageman, 30, a self-taught painter, is thrilled at this response to his distinctive work. His second group show in London with Caledoniart is on this week, and he hopes to work towards a solo show next year. "People appear to be jumping over each other to buy my work," he says, slightly bemused. "But that has been spurring me on to paint more."

His work was picked up by Brock after he was shortlisted for the Jolomo Awards for Scottish Landscape Painting in 2007. Although he didn't win, the publicity provided by the prestigious award was a major step forward. "It's been the biggest boost to my art career. Everything has picked up since then. It's opened up a lot of areas. In August I gave up my job to paint full-time."

That means more time on the mountains as well as at the easel – and he can pick and choose the best weather conditions. A keen climber of nearly 20 years, he has a special relationship with the mountains of Scotland, among which he has lived for the last eight years.

"I've climbed in New Zealand, in the Pyrenees, on the Canary Islands, in the Slovenian Alps, but Scotland is very special. All the mountains in Scotland have character, they all seem so individual. I want my paintings to communicate something of what I feel when I'm in the mountains. To get people excited, to make them aware of how special it can be."

His expeditions often last several days, sketching – when it's not too cold – and taking photographs, but he also spends a lot of time looking at maps, searching out unusual angles on familiar landscapes.

"Scottish mountains are very accessible, and many of them are very recognisable. Finding a new viewpoint is part of the challenge. To make the most of them, you just need to be a bit cunning in where you go."

Painting the North-east face of Ben Nevis made Scotland's tallest mountain look like a soaring alpine peak. "Ben Nevis is normally regarded as a hulk of a mountain, and pictures of it tend to feature the plateau. This viewpoint was a revelation to me. I spotted it on a map and thought it might prove really good, but when I got there I was blown away by it."

Brock says of Hageman's work: "Although it's hyperrealist and detailed, there's a softness he brings to it. Everyone wants to know how he does it – is it a painting or a photograph? There's something pleasing about his compositions. Perhaps because he's self-taught, he paints something he sees and is attracted to, while a more highly trained artist might seek out a more classical composition."

Hageman grew up in Lincolnshire. "Very flat," he grins. "I think that probably had a bearing on my love of mountains. It was really exciting to travel to a completely different landscape." From the age of 11, he was travelling to North Wales regularly to climb with his father.

He was also starting to paint. "I started painting mountains when I was at school, just the occasional picture, mainly to satisfy my longing to visit them again. It was a way of reliving my mountain experiences and exploring new areas to go."

When he left school, he did a degree in vehicle design but after "a brief time of thinking about whether or not I should be working for the motor industry" he moved to Scotland to be near the mountains, working in the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe and spending all his spare time in the hills. He also started to paint seriously.

Two of his paintings were shown in an exhibition at the first Fort William Mountain Film Festival in 2002, and one was bought by the organiser of the Dundee Mountain Film Festival who went on to use it in a poster for their 20th anniversary year. "That made me think 'Hang on a minute, maybe I should carry on with this,'" he says.

His Ben Nevis painting was selected for the Paisley-based Aspect Prize in 2006 – and promptly sold, and the following year he was shortlisted for the Jolomo Awards. This week's show in London with Caledoniart sees his work hanging alongside well known Scottish artists such as John Bellany, Peter Howson and John Lowrie Morrison himself, as well as Jolomo Award runners-up Ingrid Fraser and Helen Glassford.

However, after a brief sojourn to London, he'll be back where he's happiest – in the hills.

"I've been out there in all sorts of storm conditions. It can be treacherous to say the least, but it's all right if you've got the right gear and you know what you're doing. You can be out in dreadful, dreadful conditions and there is a parting in the cloud and something appears which might be as good as a blue sky day. One day last week it was beautifully sunny, the next I was up Ben Nevis in a total whiteout. It's all part of the fun isn't it?"

&#149 The Caledoniart Christmas Exhibition is at La Galleria, 20 Royal Opera Arcade, Pall Mall, London, until 13 December. For more information see www.caledoniart.com

&#149 EMERGING artists who paint the Scottish landscape have until the end of January to enter the Jolomo Awards 2009. Open to artists living and working in Scotland, the prize is one of the largest privately funded art awards in the country, with total prizemoney of 30,000.

The awards were launched by John Lowrie Morrison, one of Scotland's most prolific and successful painters, to promote and encourage the painting of the Scottish landscape and to move the discipline forward.

The inaugural awards in 2007 attracted a large number of entries, and the shortlist of nine artists, aged from 22 to 62, painted in a wide variety of styles. Anna King, 24, right, the winner of the 20,000 first prize, has since had her work exhibited in galleries across Scotland.

Morrison says: "Through the inaugural awards, we discovered a group of painters who are moving forward in their discipline. I have looked on with pride at the ways in which they have developed their work since receiving the awards. We look forward to the 2009 Awards with great excitement.

"It is wonderful to hear that Jamie has given up his day job to become a full-time painter. This is what the Jolomo Awards are about – getting artists to take on the challenge of painting the Scottish Landscape and stepping out into the unknown to see where their art and vision will take their lives."

&#149 For more information on how to enter, visit www.jolomofoundation.org. Deadline for entries is 31 January 2009.