We are delighted to present this new exhibition of work by an artist who has long been associated and exhibited in Compass Gallery, since he graduated in 1974.
John Inglis was born in Glasgow in 1953 and studied at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen and Hospitalfield, Arbroath. He won two travelling scholarships, the Keith Prize in 1975 and has had two Scottish Arts Council Awards. In 2013 he won the Bet Low Scholarship to Orkney. He was elected RSW in 1984, and became President from 2005-2016.
In these new and richly coloured collages, Inglis recreates remembered fragments of landscape and coast in complex compositions in watercolour and oil, drawing inspiration from the landscape of Cornwall and North Wales and the archaeology of Orkney. The exhibition is in three sets, Cornwall, Demolition and the Slate series. The images are refined abstractions emphasising surface, line and shape. Structure and composition are fundamental to Inglis’ work.
His first one-man show in Compass Gallery took place in 1980. His work has been included in many group shows at Compass; STV Edinburgh Festival; ‘Painters in Parallel’, Edinburgh Festival 1978; Stirling University; Talbot Rice Centre, Edinburgh; The Glasgow Group; Scottish Art 2 Generations, City Art Centre, Edinburgh and RSA, RSW, SSA and RGI Annual Exhibitions. He has had solo and group shows in the UK, USA, Canada, China, Australia and Europe.
Among the public collections containing his work are Aberdeen University and Art Gallery; Scottish Arts Council; Argyll & Bute Education Authority, Educational Institute of Scotland; STV; The Institute for Cancer Research; McLean County Arts Centre, Illinois; Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh and in Australia and Japan.