Ewan McClure was a student at Gray’s School of Art in the late nineties where Gordon Bryce, another brilliant technician, was an inspiration. Along the way he has gathered many accolades and collectors and his participation in the BP Portrait Award has brought him considerable national attention. He is a painter deeply connected to the history of belle peinture and if he recalls any single Scottish painter it is Samuel John Peploe, in his early period: the given of brilliant draughtsmanship, the understanding, and respect for the medium, the confidence to eschew the conventional but without relying on contrivance.
Since 2018, Ewan McClure has been working as artist in residence at E. A. Hornel’s studio in Kirkcudbright. During this residency his work in the studio has informed his still lifes and informal arrangements. He has concentrated on the effect of light and shadow, and complex compositions viewed through angled mirrors, playing with ideas of depth and illusion. The surrounding townscape and countryside of Kirkcudbright have also been explored. Inside and Out reveals a new chapter in the artistic history of Kirkcudbright with this beguiling and original body of new work.
