Neil Macdonald PAI RGI RSW: Of Time and Place

About

Neil Macdonald is drawn to locations which exert historic and mythic presence and is particularly engaged with Scottish history and the evidence of its previous peoples.

Macdonald’s works explore the lyrical narrative of natural sites and strong bold shapes offered by castles, churches, old townships and harbours. Through the distortion of perspective, invention and editing, Macdonald reimagines the subjects he paints, aiming to capture an essence of the structure or place in its previous glory. In some pieces topographic accuracy is replaced by an imaginative response to the subject, the drama of light important in conveying an atmosphere of mood, revealing the subject’s unique sense and poetry of place.

‘Of Time and Place’ continues this theme, focussing on Macdonald’s enjoyment of the landscape and human interaction with the land in the Northern Isles, Orkney in particular.

Neil Macdonald trained at Glasgow School of Art from 1975 to 1980. In 2012 he was elected a member of the Paisley Art Institute and in 2013 a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour and the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. Macdonald has exhibited widely in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.