From the 12th-15th August 2020, Gallery Director Tommy Zyw cycled the North Coast 500 to raise money and awareness for MND (Motor Neurone Disease). Tommy’s twin brother Davy, who joined him on the challenge, was diagnosed with MND in April 2018. In August 2022 the team assembled again to tackle the ‘Scotland High 5’, a grueling 265-mile cycle across the 5 highest roads in Scotland. The Gallery continues to support MND charities, most notably My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, the charity set up by rugby star Doddie Weir.
Tommy and the Gallery team have been touched by the incredible level of support from friends and artists alike. We are delighted to be able to offer the following artworks for sale, with full proceeds being donated to Ride for MND. To read more about the challenge please click here.
Kate Downie was born in North Carolina but raised from the age of 7 in Scotland. She studied at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen before travel and residencies took her to the United States, England, Amsterdam, Paris and Japan. Her constant search for new challenges and inspirations has seen her set up studios in such diverse places as a brewery, an oil rig, and an abandoned Hydroponicum.
As a Landscape painter her subject matter is often the man-made rather than the natural, but it is defined by good draughtsmanship and a sense of movement.
‘One of my creative concerns is to define these spaces between buildings rather than the buildings themselves. The object lesson for me is the witnessing and the drawing of these nonplaces which are also, by definition, public arenas of cumulative activity. My job as an artist is to accommodate these actions in our contemporary lives, and to find the poetry within.’
– Kate Downie
Born in North Carolina, Kate Downie studied at Grays School of Art in Aberdeen before travel and residencies took her to the United States, England, Amsterdam and Paris. Over the past two decades Downie has established herself as one of Scotland’s most prominent artists. Her skill not restricted to painting alone, she works across a diverse range of artistic medium. One recent project for Pittenweem Arts Festival saw Kate juxtapose large colour-field prints with architectural charcoal drawings with extraordinary results. The majority of her work is defined by geography, and the artist’s response to the landscape or subject in front of her. Kate’s constant search for new challenges and inspirations has seen her set up studios in such diverse places as a brewery, an oil rig, and for her most recent show an abandoned Hydroponicum. Her work is held in many public collections including Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art; Kelvingrove, Art Gallery: Reitveld Kunst Academie, Amsterdam; the BBC and Edinburgh Council.
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