John Bellany's distinctive and moving paintings for me are inextricably linked with seeing them at Glasgow's Modern Art Museum (GOMA) . I had worked my way up to the top floor, excited by the energy of all these Scottish artists, where I discovered his paintings hanging in a quiet gallery space under the eaves. I could enjoy and absorb what they said undisturbed and also turn for respite from their emotional impact to look out of the small windows to the street. Ever since, I have associated Bellany's paintings with that close-up view of blackened corinthian capitals, lichened window sills, and chicken wire to keep off the pigeons from George Square below.
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| Scottish Mother and Child 2005 © the artist's estate |
This painting below brings his reaction to the Indian Ocean tsunami back to his themes of the Port Seton fishermen.
(and see studio international.com for Dr. Janet McKenzie's illuminating article on John Bellany's work.)
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| Premonition 2005 © the artist's estate |
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