I have always gathered images haphazardly. Sometimes I start with a rough idea of the type of place I want to visit but at other times I chance upon locations and views. I am always on the lookout it seems.
I will return to favourite locations, searching for new material having had time to reflect on them. There are a few locations and settings which I think about intermittently and return to periodically.
I also consider what makes these places important and why they are worth painting. What makes them individual? Who owns them? And how best to capture this?
Then there is the moment when I find something interesting and, years later, I can trace the origins of a given painting back to a photograph I took on a dull Tuesday. Sometimes it can be something remarkably simple that I want to capture, the form of a tree or a particular shadow, but at other times the various ideas that the place conjures up requires a longer period of contemplation.
Calum McClure, 2020Images always come from the outside world and my reaction to them form the final painting. It is a continual process, I keep looking, because I am only one image away from another starting point.
A selection of works by Calum McClure can be viewed online here and please enjoy our short films from Calum McClure below as he shows us what he has been working on in his studio during lockdown.
Great Scots in Isolation is a series of short, 1-2 minute films made by a wide range of artists who are currently represented by The Scottish Gallery during the UK Covid-19 lockdown. These are artists from Scotland, the UK and internationally, who have very kindly agreed to reach out and say hello.
For this episode, we hear how Calum has been working on composition and reflect upon his own practice.
