Duncan Shanks is returning to The Scottish Gallery this summer with The Riverbank – A Landscape of Sorrow and Hope. These vibrant and energetic paintings, heavily inspired by lockdowns and Shanks’ consequential artistic turn to subjects closer to home, are fuelled by the constant flow of water, presenting its resilience in nature.
Having lived in Crossford in the Clyde Valley for 60 years, with the river that flows past his house and garden a constant presence in his life, Shanks finds inspiration in the consistent energy of the river. The water lapping the tangled bank is an ever-present soundtrack in his environment. His paintings capture the river’s constant motion, with each brushstroke overcoming an instinct to organize and structure the chaos.
Shanks’ previous exhibitions have focused on the drama of the landscape and the balance between structure and chaos. The Riverbank – A Landscape of Sorrow and Hope illuminates his little corner of the Clyde Valley with all the magnificence and drama of a grand vista. It is the act of looking which is the driving force behind his art; by observing the garden and river every day, moments can be witnessed that he will have never seen before. For Shanks, the studio and garden are intrinsically one; the journey of a painting echoing the life of the garden, which is cultivated, but then left to follow its own untamed path.
Shanks comments, From the blocks of moving paint, I gradually find my river images, continually dismantling and reconstructing their form and design in a search for that elusive moment when paint and nature come together. Though unplanned and unintentional, the predominant theme and character which has emerged from my work has been a sense of enclosure. It is a restless yet invigorating, confident and unlike the tranquillity of a medieval enclosed garden or the well tender flowerbeds and pools of Giverny, in an unforgiving close up of untamed nature.
A life dedicated to art and an attitude that views a day without painting or drawing as wasted, looking for parallels in writing and music; this is Shanks’ world. After a career spanning six decades, his thirteenth exhibition at The Scottish Gallery will be highly anticipated as a vivid feature in the 2022 Edinburgh Art Festival.
The Riverbank – A Landscape of Sorrow and Hope
The Scottish Gallery, 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Thursday 28th July – Saturday 27th August 2022