Art words by Lorna Sinclair

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Lorna Sinclair grew up in an art lover’s home, where creativity was encouraged and artistic expression was celebrated

interview by Mairi Mulhern photography Theodora van Duin, Murray Headrick and Greg Mckinney

I have always been enchanted by colour and was drawn to painting from a very young age. One of the first paintings that stood out to me as a teenager was by Joan Eardley.

IMAGE | Murray Headrick

I remember being hypnotised by her expressive landscapes and portraits of children in the Gorbals in Glasgow. She blended colourist techniques with texture to achieve a true rawness that I’d never seen before – and haven’t seen since. It was there, gazing at Joan Eardley’s work in the National Gallery of Scotland, that I decided I wanted to be an artist.

LORNA SINCLAIR PAINTS WITH VIBRANT COLOUR
IMAGE | Murray Headrick

I graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in 2017 and I don’t think I’ve gone longer than four days without painting since. I’ve completed residencies across the UK and in Cyprus and Berlin. My work was on show at Edinburgh’s Morningside Gallery earlier this year and in January I’ll be in Costa Rica, painting from an eco house near the rainforest.

IMAGE | Murray Headrick

My work exists around the sensory memories of my travels to faraway dreamscapes, as well as scenes from my everyday life. Seemingly unexciting things such as cycling through Glasgow Green on a sunny day can inspire me just as much as my adventures to the Outer Hebrides and further afield to places like Byron Bay, Australia.

summer flowers by Lorna Sinclair
IMAGE | Theodora van Duin. Summer Flowers by Lorna Sinclair

This painting, Summer Flowers, was part of the summer exhibition at Morningside Gallery and is still available there now. The piece has been a source of inspiration for a lot of my work.

I was inspired to paint Summer Flowers from spontaneous sketches of various window scenes, with wild garden flowers spilling out of a cerulean vase, during a warm summer’s day in the Borders. The brilliant contrast of the red flowers that were glowing in the sunlight, against the cooler tones of the window interior attracted me to paint this scene – to capture this fleeting moment of intense light.

lorna sinclair's studio in glasgow's east end, bridgeton
IMAGE | Greg Mckinney

Thicker, impasto brushstrokes of oil paint mixed with pigment were layered to create rich textures in the flowers, which is contrasted with washes of dribbling, thinned paint to create a sense of calm and ease in the background – somewhere to escape into. Blending saturated colour with these textural elements, I feel, adds a physicality to my paintings, giving them life beyond the canvas.

Visit the Lorna Sinclair website | Follow Lorna Sinclair on Instagram


Art Words by Soo Burnell

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