Meet the Maker – Stuart Buchanan

Hi Stuart, can you introduce yourself and your creative background?

I’m Stuart Buchanan, born and raised in Glasgow. I studied drawing and painting at Glasgow School of Art between 1988 and 1992 when the extraordinary and magical Macintosh Building still stood. For the last 20 years, I have lived and worked in Catterline, a small fishing village on the Aberdeenshire coast.

What does a typical day in your studio look like?

My studio is situated in a building known locally as ‘The Watchie’ – it is a 250 year old customs watch house, perched on top of a headland jutting out into the North Sea. It was built to house watchmen on the lookout for smugglers! I have to walk along a cliff top path to access it. The building has been used as an artist’s studio since the 1950s and I have been painting there for the last 18 years. I like to get there early and paint in the mornings – I live nearby and go home for lunch and then paint in the afternoons. I work under natural light, so winter days are shorter but I find myself quite productive in the condensed time. In fairer weather, I’ll drag the easel outside to work en plein air. It’s a peaceful place with farmland behind and the sea on the other side, surrounded by nature.

How has your process evolved since you first began painting? 

It has always been about the paint. The visual language that you see in the work today has been distilled over 30 years and I think your environment shapes that evolution. There are direct references to what I was painting at Art School that still re-appear to this day. I think as an artist I consider myself a professional observer, always looking and always composing an image to work on.

Your figures often stand alone against vast backgrounds, but appear peacefully meditative, as opposed to isolated. How do you use colour, tone, and composition to create this feeling of calm reflection?

Most mornings on the way to the studio, I stop and look back down the coast. I breathe and feel the sun on my face, and smell the sea air and just take a moment. I want to find a kind of hush, despite the expressive application of the paint. That’s what I am trying to achieve in my work. There is an aspect of shared memory in the work, warm recollections of childhood and wonderment, dream-like (as in good dreams, not nightmares). There’s no one influence or painting that brings me to this stage in my work but I find the playfulness of Miró a constant guide.

Your backgrounds often feature seemingly fluid or spontaneous mark-marking, in comparison to the figures which appear more delicately rendered. To what extent do you work instinctively or are all your competitions carefully planned?

I don’t usually start a painting with a fixed idea. I’ll paint up a board till there’s a good colour and texture, and leaving the incidental marks in, and then try to visualise a scenario on that surface and work it out from there. There’s a kind of alchemy with the colour and texture that only reveals itself in the act of applying the paint. It’s something I never feel totally in control of and I’m prepared the lose the piece in pursuit of finding that magic.

What are some of your biggest influences and how have they impacted your process or philosophy? 

Some of my biggest influences are the biggest names in art history – Picasso, Miró, Van Gogh, Rembrandt. It’s paint, the substance of paint, and its infinite possibilities that drives me forward, so I like ‘painter’s painters’. I wouldn’t say I had a process or a philosophy as such – I’ll begin a couple of new pieces at the start of the week and see if I can make them work. I genuinely never know if they’ll come good or not but I work quickly and move onto the next. If I had a philosophy it would be to make the work uncomplicated. The idea and execution has to flow.

Finally, what are you most excited to be working on this year?

This year, as in the last 8 to 10 years, I make mainly smaller bodies of work for specific galleries. This usually consists of 10 to 15 pieces that reference my commonly recurring themes. I am always delighted to exhibit in such beautiful spaces like the Biscuit Factory. Just being able to continue painting full-time is a privilege that I never take for granted.

Stuart’s latest collection of vibrant, whimsical paintings is now available to view in the gallery, offering a fresh perspective on his evolving practice and a renewed emphasis on colour, gesture and atmosphere.