Just Art, Fochabers, until 1 December 2012

FRANCIS BOAG, the Dundee born artist, was previously Head of Art at Aberdeen Grammar School before embarking on a highly successful career as a full-time artist in the 1990s.

REGARDED as one of Scotland’s New Colourists, his work is both decorative and thought provoking; concerned with the physical construction of paint yet equally emotionally involving. I was able to catch up with the artist at the preview of his new exhibition at Fochaber’s Just Art Gallery.

Francis Boag at Just Art (photo Billy Rough)

Over the last seven years Boag has exhibited in New York, Paris, Munich, Michigan, Dublin, Belfast and Seattle, and his work has attracted considerable notice and appreciation, frequently featuring as cards for UNICEF and proving popular with a number of significant private and corporate collectors. This new exhibition marks a long-standing relationship with between gallery and artist; Boag said: “… we’ve become pretty good friends and Stewart [Harris, owner of Just Art] does a lot, informally, for me so I always try and make sure I can give him as much work as possible, and there is a connection between my work and this area … Just Art is always interesting and very good on the craft.”

During his early career in Dundee Boag favoured portraits and figurative work which, while successful, didn’t answer the structural and compositional questions the artist sought to solve. Equally, while the flat fertile landscape of the Tay coast, and the Carse of Gowrie especially, was a favoured subject for artists Boag found the subject somewhat lacking.

“In Dundee there is a different sort of landscape so well rendered by McIntosh Patrick, even Jimmy Morrison to a certain extent, and though I liked their work there was nothing I felt I wanted to do, although just before I left I did do some drawings of Lochee Park, the Stannergate and I enjoyed them but they were just for drawing.”

Francis Boag - Summer Pond Ury 3

In fact it was only after relocating to the North East in the late 1980’s to take up the post in Aberdeen that Boag’s love for the landscape fully manifested itself. During the commute from his home in Newtonhill he’d often take the scenic country roads rather than follow the A90 and it was during these drives that his eyes were opened to the colour and possibilities of the Aberdeenshire coast.

“I began to take notice of the lie of the land and topography, a lot of the farm houses would sit with a few trees, some fences and it must have seeped into the subconscious. At weekends, on a Saturday, I’d go out, drive around and stop and do some drawings; not to paint but just as an end in themselves but I started to use the drawings as little paintings and I quite enjoyed them; the freedom that landscape gives you – portraits can be more precise and less free – and they were received really well.”

The rhythm of built structures, contrasted with the organic forms of nature proved particularly appealing: “What I noticed, while I was driving, was that you could get up quite close to the landscape – you’d get quite a strong shape to the landscape – for instance when you go out to draw you don’t necessarily notice, until you actually start drawing, how many poles there are, of all sorts, and when you’ve got them going across your picture with the horizontals you get a strong composition”.

Joan Eardley and Alberto Morrocco, an early tutor of Boag’s, provided significant inspiration and his work shares a fascination with the light, colour and vibrancy of both artists. Kandinsky too is a strong influence, and Boag’s work is intensely rich in the sensory musicality of colour and form: “I’m a big fan of Kandinsky and his theory of colour, Concerning the Spiritual in Art; how colours have sounds and temperatures, and whether you know it or not, you cannot be influenced by his thinking; you can do it consciously or you can do it unconsciously.”

Francis Boag - Blair Castle Horse Show

Cobalt, gold and scarlet ping off Boag’s canvas and his confident handling is apparent in Blair Castle Horse Show, in which an organic and vibrant arrangement of navy, emerald and violet is complimented by the underlying grid of newsprint collage and music sheets suggesting both the freedom of nature and the geometric constraints of the man-made landscape. While the use of collage, principally music sheets, helps to provide a structural framework of the canvas it would be a mistake to assume any symbolist narrative in Boag’s choice and selection.

“I noticed that if you put a bit of text on people would stop, go up close and read it, the fact that it didn’t make any sense was irrelevant but it made people stop and look closely and then they’d see the colour and texture. The text isn’t usually about the place; it’s there for a technical and painterly reason. My wife’s a musician and there were always manuscripts lying about so I’d use them and I liked the ‘grid’ of the paper – the strong lines, etc. and there is a process of elimination but it’s more for the shape rather than the text’s original meaning.”

Francis Boag - Summer Pond Ury 4

Colour and texture stimulate an individual response between artwork and viewer, and Boag’s scenes of the grounds of Ury House, close to Stonehaven, are especially evocative. Summer Pond Ury 3 and Summer Pond Ury 4 provides a sweet meditation on the late summer afternoon. Flat planes merge and collide with the pulsating dashes of colour. Above the cool watery cerulean hovers a multitude of forms and colours – some fixed, some in flux. The heat of sun on water and the ambiguity of light are captured well through the dabs of ephemeral yellow and ghostly orbs of blue.

Francis Boag - Ury Copse

In Ury Copse, Boag provides a strong contrast between the fiery crimson of the foreground with the cool, luxurious jade and gold of the farmland. In the centre looms the small, darkly atmospheric copse – an ancient and uninhibited figure in this constructed and controlled landscape. Indeed it is this contrast that fascinates Boag: “What first attracted me was the man-made imprint on the landscape, the cottages and structures – they provide the context of the picture and the scale.”

Wistful nostalgia is equally palpable in Skateraw Memories. Taking the old name for Newtonhill, Boag utilises music script to construct a linear and structural gathering of houses nestling in the North Sea coast. The flat green and orange pastures of the foreground highlight the problem facing a landscape artist – whether to focus on detail or suggestion.

“The problem is always what do you do with the foreground, there are things there; rocks and fence posts and grasses – do you try and capture them in detail or can you render them in a simpler manner or in another way and that became the patchwork of colours and I drew everything from that. It’s a way of trying to interpret what you’re seeing; but not just representing, in a way that allows the viewer a chance to add their own impressions to it.”

What’s important for Boag is not the suggested narrative of the work but the emotive and visual response to the forms and colours used in his canvases: “People will put a huge amount of interpretation into the work but, for me, the paint itself is the mastery; what it is is more important than what it represents.”

Francis Boag - Skateraw Memories

The exhibition at Just Art is a testimony to the strength not only of the artist’s work but the landscape which inspired it. Already much of the work on show has sold, which reflects the artist’s appeal and reputation of the gallery. On the encouragingly resilient Scottish art market (perhaps mainly due to the talent and training of its practitioners as well as the public’s appreciation for good work) Boag is positive, and his opinion on its strengths and repute reveals an optimism and vivacity which characterises his own art.

“Scotland has a great record of supporting artists through galleries like Just Art in Fochabers and Scottish people are really, really supportive of their artists and the quality is recognised. If you go to the London galleries and they have a show of Scottish artists they always call it the “Scottish Show” because that term is a statement of quality. There is a really vibrant art scene here. If you looked at Scotland through the eyes of its artists then you’d think the whole world would want to come here.”

© Billy Rough, 2012

Links

•  Just Art Fochabers
• Francis Boag