Extract from The Courier and Advertiser, Friday July 28th, 2006, by Helen Brown
Reproduced by kind permission of D.C. Thomson and Co., Ltd.
Two Dundee artists whose friendship began at art college in the city in the 1960s are getting back together to stage an exhibition of recent work in Dundee University’s Botanic Gardens next week.
Ian Miller and Jim Boyd
Ian Miller and Jim Boyd have obviously known each other for many years, but it was only after Ian’s retirement from his teaching career in 2002 that the impetus towards a joint show began to gather momentum.
Ian explained, “We had got together now and again, just as friends and colleagues, but I found that during my time in teaching I didn’t feel that I had the time or the energy to continue my own painting in any significant way. I’ve always admired those who didn’t let the 'day job' dominate, but, for me, it was very much the focus and didn’t leave room for much personal creative expression.
Apart from family commitments I got interested in ( and distracted by ) other things too – such as singing and playing the saxophone, for example.
Once I retired, however, I was delighted to find that my interest in my own painting began to re-emerge really quite quickly and, having met Jim and had a long chat about it, I suggested to him that, although he had shown work pretty regularly, it might be good to do something together.
He reckoned it was overdue and something we should have done long ago, so after that was decided we had to get on with it.”
Ian is drawn to naturalistic subjects but also finds great stimulation in pattern and colour as well as the tonal description of objects. His own mentors at college included Alberto Morrocco, Gordon Cameron and David McClure, and The Glasgow Boys and The Scottish Colourists are also strong influences in Ian’s artistic development.
He cites the influence of very different masters, including Matisse and Manet ,who whilst invariably associated with the Impressionists was not strictly an Impressionist although he was influenced by them. The latter’s figure compositions invariably incorporated, as incidentals, exquisite examples of one of Ian’s major interests – still life. The decorative, ornamental features of still life reflect the work of Gauguin, Matisse and others.
“I think I was initially drawn back into painting by this decorative aspect of still life but landscape is steadily attracting more and more of my interest.”
The Botanic Gardens exhibition is, therefore, a fascinating mix of two very different approaches, Ian’s colourful in oils and pastels, oriented towards still life and landscape, and Jim’s more abstract, created in that technically detailed etching process perfected over many years. Apart from one or two earlier pieces the body of what is on show has been created very recently.
Always inspired by travel – during his time at Duncan of Jordanstone he won a scholarship that took him to London and Paris – Ian finds that wandering around new locations, from Italy to Australia, and just absorbing atmosphere, pattern, shape and colour has a profoundly creative effect on his work.
“Sometimes I think you’re barely conscious of what you take in and store away somewhere in your mind. Something just cooks away and can eventually produce a picture which might be quite different from the original inspiration. I think it was the artist Paul Klee who said something about a tree not looking like the roots it springs from but being the product of that all the same. That idea appeals to me, that a new image comes from what you see but isn’t a copy of it.”
Closer to home, he has rediscovered the beauty and diversity of the Carse of Gowrie and reckons there is little better for an artist than when the sun shines on the Scottish landscape, still offering visual delights in undiscovered corners and hidden lanes. “It’s the simple things rather than the epic views of mountains and grandeur that attract me at the moment,” he maintains.
Now that he has resumed functioning as an artist, Ian admits to a slight feeling of anxiety about finding the time to do everything he wants to. But, from the moment of retiral from teaching his pleasure in and commitment to his work has gathered its own momentum.
“When I stopped working, a store of unpainted pictures came back into the front of my mind and the stream continues. It’s like a 38-year interruption to my painting life is now over and things are developing with a vengeance! The odd spasmodic impulse to paint, during the summer holidays for example, has turned into a permanent drive to produce. Now, I can’t overstate it, the day is yours to do with as you like and I’m delighted that so much is coming out of it.”
The exhibition ran in Dundee University Botanic Gardens from August 5th – 13th 2006.
Background: detail, Poppyscape 2
© Copyright Ian G. Miller