Fresh Paint
Frances Macdonald
The raw and expressive nature of Frances Macdonald’s
work can transport even the most landlocked of viewers
to the coastal climbs of West Scotland, where the artist
runs Argyll’s Crinan Hotel with her husband Nick Ryan.
The sheer wealth of inspiration in the everchanging and
beautiful coastal town has drawn scores of artists to the
hotel, where Frances herself has held many exhibitions.
She came to the area following a career as a nurse at sea
during which time she would paint fishing boats, selling
her work as she went.
While the sea has been a consistent subject for the
painter, her chosen medium has changed significantly.
Initially a watercolourist, it wasn’t until her son, the artist
Ross Ryan, went off to art school that Frances was
encouraged to hone a new craft and turned to oil paint.
Years later she is now fully committed to the buttery
medium, working in sweeping, impasto gestures to
create dramatic waves and clouds.
Despite the sense of immediacy in Frances’s paintings,
they are mostly completed back in the studio, with her
memory, sketches and photographs serving as references.
The large scale might confine Frances’s practice indoors,
but as one of the most eloquent observers of the west
coast islands, her mastery of coastal landscapes hits so
convincingly you can almost feel the sea spray jumping
off the canvas.
That said, she wastes no time contemplating her ideas,
preferring to dash back to the canvas and start working as
soon as possible. She keeps a sketchbook on hand for
marking out ideas, but never draws onto the canvas as she
feels it makes it “too tight”. Instead, she paints straight
onto the canvas with large brushes and a palette knife,
always starting in the top right-hand corner. “I might paint
a rough mark to indicate where the horizon will go,” she
explains, “but I always start my paintings in the same way.”
Frances’s next exhibition runs from 20 February to 6 March at
Portland Gallery, London SW1. http://www.francesmacdonald.co.ukABOVE LEFT Frances
Macdonald,
Glimpse of the
Paps of Jura from
the Mull of Kintyre,
oil on canvas,
137x152cmFrances’s
top tiP
“Add drama to a
landscape by working
with a palette knife,
using more paint and
wider gestures”