oil on canvas – Clive Ramage Art

Happy New Year!

Just a quick note to wish you a very Happy New Year and also to say a huge !!THANK YOU!! to everyone who bought my paintings and, therefore, supported me greatly in my work throughout 2021.

Lots of very good things happened this past year, including my move to Aberdeen and settling into a great new studio here. I’ve also recently begun working with some local galleries (including Ballater and Braemar) and have lots of energy and inspiration for new pictures to paint and send to them, as well as to my regular galleries in the coming months.

Keep an eye out here for news of my latest works in progress and exhibitions, including Land & Sea which opens later this month at Heriot Gallery in Dundas Street, Edinburgh.

In the meantime, I wish you a safe, prosperous and very happy 2022!

Bass Rock show at Fidra Fine Art, Gullane. Only 1 week left!

The Bass Rock (Nocturne)
Oil on wood panel
60x40cm
£1450

Just over a week to see this amazing show of 70 pictures by 30 artist at Fidra Fine Art in Gullane. All of whom have been inspired by the sheer beauty of the Bass Rock.

Bass Rock

4 September to 3 October

Featuring:

Julia Albert-Recht, Claire Beattie, George Birrell, John Boak, Georgina Bown, Davy Brown, Dominique Cameron, Alan Connell, Ann Cowan, Fee Dickson, Matthew Draper, Michael Durning, Ronnie Fulton, Andy Heald, David E Johnston, John Johnstone, Suzanne Kirk, Simon Laurie, Neil Macdonald, Julia McNairn White, Rachel Marshall, Ann Oram, Clive Ramage, Gregory Rankine, Pen Reid, Pascale Rentsch, Arran Ross, Jayne Stokes, Astrid Trügg and Darren Woodhead.

It has cast its spell over artists and writers such as Turner and Robert Louis Stevenson. In the 17th century, it was dubbed Scotland’s Alcatraz following Cromwell’s invasion of Scotland. Now the Bass Rock, which sits a few miles off the coast of North Berwick in East Lothian, is to be the subject of our latest exhibition.

Around 30 artists have been invited to present their unique view of the famous volcanic plug, which is home to 350,000 seabirds, including over 150,000 gannets – the largest ‘single rock’ colony of northern gannets on earth.

It is an irresistible, imposing, brooding and beautiful muse for artists and it has inspired a fascinating and varied collection of work for this show.

The exhibition continues until Sunday 3 October, I hope you will be able to come and view the work “in the flesh”.

3 Coloured Super Moons (Sienna, Grey, Blue) at arTay, Perth festival of The Arts

3 Super Moons (Sienna, Grey & Blue) 48x58cm Etching & Aquatint

I’ve been back at Fife Dunfermline Printmakers Workshop this week for the first time in a while. All in an effort to produce something a bit different for the arTay exhibition event at Perth Festival of The Arts, which opens next week (18-21st May).

So I’ve produced these 3 different coloured versions of my Super Moon etching (image size 48x58cm). They’re off to the framers now, but do go along to the event if you’re in the Perth area and have a closer look at the moon than you’d normally get. There’s a lot more detail thank you might expect in that bright orb hanging in the sky at night. Hopefully, I’ve managed to capture a suggestion of that with these.

There’s also going to be hundreds of works on show by around 60 other artists, so plenty to see.

Here’s the Blue version showing the full-sized print below.

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Northern Lights – An Artistic Odyssey Around Scotland’s Coastline

Only 2 weeks to go until my solo exhibition at Fire Station Creative. Here are some words and pictures to help shed some light on what will be hanging on the walls there. The preview will be held between 7.30-10pm on Friday 6th November and the show runs until Sunday 22 November. I hope to see there.

_DSC0496 — The Bass Rock Light (oil on canvas, 80x80cm)

I grew up in Arbroath, so have always been drawn to the sea. Each night, like clockwork, the Bell Rock, the Isle of May and the Fife Ness lights would intermittently flash their beams out across the cold, dark sea miles and I would watch – mesmerised at my bedroom window. I’d follow the fishing boats as they puttered out into the firth from the harbour, eventually becoming little more than red and green dots that slowly edged beyond the moonlit horizon. The twinkling orange lamps of St Andrews and Kingsbarns would beckon to me from far away across the Firth of Tay and illuminate my dreams. Those mysterious, exotic lights across the sea have continued to tantalise and inspire me and I have always wanted to capture something of that magic and atmosphere in pictorial form. So my campervan travels around Scotland’s coast this year have provided me with a wealth of inspiration for new paintings and etchings; I feel I have barely begun to scratch the surface with the work for this exhibition.

Stromness Nocturne — Sromness Nocturne (oil on canvas with gold leaf, 60x60cm)

I quickly discovered that it wasn’t so much the lights themselves that were interesting me pictorially, but their situations within the surrounding landscape and the wild spaces between them. Lighthouses proved to be a wonderful general theme for the trip and also a great focal point for some of the paintings, but the ‘interesting’ Scottish weather and the colours and atmosphere of each location probably became the more important feature of the work.

The Bell Rock, High Seas (oil on canvas, 60x60cm)

I was very fortunate to be awarded a grant by Fife Contemporary Arts and Crafts to help fund my travels, which took me from The Mull of Galloway at the south western tip of Scotland to Stromness in Orkney. I have yet to reach Muckle Flugga, Scotland’s most northernly lighthouse, but I will get there one of these days!