The artist lives and works in Kirkcudbright, known as the ‘artists’ town’ – while I was working on this catalogue, I had a short holiday in the town, witnessing at first-hand some of the views that have inspired the artist. The image on the front cover is a detail of Kirkcudbright, Summer, a painting from 2021, which is very typical of the works in this exhibition.
As well as views of Kirkcudbright, the exhibition includes still-lives alongside paintings of the artist’s travels in Sweden. The final section of the catalogue, Veiled Light, really attracted my interest: these experimental departures for the artist are painted on various panel surfaces with patterns of defects, such as cork tiles and mosaics of jigsaw puzzle pieces. For the back cover (above), I selected one of these paintings Light and Moisture, a landscape painted on polyester mesh, as a foil to the more traditional painting on the front cover. The mesh-like fabric of the painting has a translucency which allows for a design in the space behind to show through the matrix of holes, creating an almost 3-D effect which, although difficult to reproduce in print, I hope is revealed in this close-up detail.
The book is typeset in Clarendon URW, Minion Pro and Freight Sans Pro. It is 190mm x 240mm and is printed on white silk paper with a matt finish by Pureprint.
Ewan McClure: Inside and Out is at The Scottish Gallery, 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ, from 5 May to 28 May 2022.