Edinburgh artist presents East Lothian Seascapes
Edinburgh artist Julia McNairn White presents a new exhibition of East Lothian coastal scenes
A new exhibition of oil paintings and pastels “Scottish Seascapes” by the artist Julia McNairn White is set to open on Saturday 28 March at The Sutton Gallery on Dundas Street.
Focusing on the rugged and windswept landscape of the East Lothian coast, McNairn White has produced a dramatic and exciting body of vibrant and colourful works that exude a contemplative and peaceful stillness. Known for her handling of colour and shape in particular, this new series of paintings includes such landmarks as Craigleith Island, the bass rock and the open water swimming baths at North Berwick.
Julia McNairn White was born in Selkirk in 1962 into a family with generations of artistic talent, counting among her ancestors painters (including an ancestor who built a successful career painting seascapes) and photographers. Her mother Stella McNairn and father John McNairn were both artists, the latter represented across many public collections and an associate of Julian Trevelyan and Stanley William Hayter. Her sister, Caroline McNairn was also a celebrated artist who enjoyed significant acclaim in the USA as well as at home.
McNairn White attended Edinburgh College of Art from 1984 to 1988 at a time when the school was enjoying a particularly strong period for painting. Her tutors included the artist John Houston. In her final year, McNairn White was awarded the Daler Rowney Prize and went on to have a number of highly successful exhibitions throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, including at Compass Gallery, the 369 Gallery, the Dick Institute, The Edinburgh Gallery, The Leith Gallery and the Buchanan Gallery. Her work was increasingly sought after by collectors and she also received many commissions, including for United Distillers, Erskine House and various contracts for Inhouse, Edinburgh.
From the 1999 until 2014, McNairn White focused on another career and neither painted or exhibited during this period. However, her sensitivity and skillful technique only distilled in this period and in 2014, McNairn White returned to her career as an artist after a gap of 15 years. With a sell-out solo exhibition held at The Sutton Gallery in 2014. Following this success, her work was also featured at the Buy Art Fair in Manchester in September 2014 and the artist embarked on her next series, the paintings and pastels of the east Lothian coast that make up this exhibition.
Gallery director Colin Herd comments: “It is a great privilege to be showing McNairn White’s work at The Sutton Gallery. The elegance and perspicacity of her vision is exceptionally moving. In the New Yorker, Peter Schjeldahl once wrote that Edward Hopper “bets everything on composition, which in his work is as tautly considered as in Mondrian”. The same is very much true of McNairn White’s work. The interaction of every shape and above all light is what animates her pictures, what gives them their capacity to convey emotion and feeling.”
Submitted by Colin Herd
