Robert McGilvray

Robert McGilvray was born in Glasgow in 1952. He studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, graduating in 1975. He was then employed as a part time lecturer until 2014. Over a 40 year career he taught in many departments including Design, Architecture, Town Planning and the School of Fine Art. In 2002, he resumed his career as an artist and has exhibited in numerous group shows throughout the UK and NI and has had solo exhibitions Dundee, Perth, Forfar, Glasgow and in Limerick, Rep of Ireland.

The paintings of Robert McGilvray are in a sense abstract but at the same time are rooted in the reality of landscape. They are not landscape paintings in the accepted sense of that particular genre. They are more personal responses to a sense of place and the memory of an experience, often momentary, always different and transient: the biting East wind or the looming squall of the enveloping white mist, the haar.

Vast distances are explored as well as the cool serenity that pervades the Scottish landscape, east and west. All of the paintings are journeys of memory and imagination, of recognition of the limitless space and special place that is here.

The horizon line is always present in many of the works, often represented by collaged wooden elements. It is not only the divide between the earth and sky but also a metaphor for man-made structures that permeate the landscape. Like an encroaching pier punctuating the sea, a crisp abstract gesture counterbalances the ephemeral tumult of the coastal landscape.

During his working career, Robert co-founded the first WASP’S (workshop and artist’s studio Scotland Ltd) in Scotland and subsequently Meadowmill Studios in Dundee.

He was the co-ordinator of the Blackness Public Art Programme which became the long-running, widely recognised and pioneering Dundee Public Art Programme as well as co-founding the Seagate Gallery, which was the catalyst for the current Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA).

His experience in public art led him to establish programmes in Coatbridge, Perth, Arbroath and Ullapool Community School as well as strategies for Highland Council and South Lanarkshire Council. He has presented papers and lectures throughout the UK, Northern Ireland, Finland and Alabama USA.