John Robert Smith

Harmony and Light - 14 June to 22 July

Angela, Artisanand's owner says "Cowal Peninsula based artist John Robert Smith joined the gallery before Covid and has been a regular contributor since then. John’s work is marvellous always speaking of a narrative with strong emotive themes. I’ve been lucky to have him in the gallery with collections that have addressed narratives that impact us all in some way; They include his "Lockdown" paintings with musicians playing - socially distanced - on the loch in moonlight, the "Hugs" collection which captured how it felt when we could again hold each other after the first covid release and his "From river to sea" collection, telling the story of his previous home near the Tay and his new home on the Cowal Peninsula.

This collection is a combination of such narratives using John’s story-telling within the confines of our exhibition title “Harmony and Light”. This is a collection that I suspect will capture his audiences attention yet again.” Its also lovely to be able to host John who recently moved to the Cowal Peninsula from the hills above Aberfeldy, where he lived for over a decade, so a coming home!

John, the artist explains; When I started on this collection of work for Artisanand for the show Harmony and Light I was uncertain about the direction I would take. I was troubled about one half of the harmony and light theme. The harmony part. Light is a wonderful thing to paint and I do it all the time. I’m a bit of a light addict. I live on the coast of Scotland and so watch sunrises, sunsets and moonlight in awe at the cosmic forces at work. Very aware of the sometimes drastic and fast changing effects of light on the sea. And so I was very comfortable with the light part. But not so with harmony. Because like a lot of people I know, these days I see only discord in the world. Rapacious greed, such crushing inequality, war, suffering, cruelty, callous environmental harm. And I despair, and I used to be such an optimist.

But you can’t approach painting in the grip of despair. You can’t overthink painting. You need faith, you need to just start, to let your feelings and a wandering imagination take the form they must. And so I started on light and strangely, inexplicably in it I found harmony. Well my form of harmony. The big forces, the big natural events, the big landscapes somehow led me to think about the human scale. Led me to revive my faith in humanity. Led me to think about how our species has evolved in all of this vast unknowable process of evolution to collaborate, to depend on each other, to value reciprocal kindness, to love and laugh and cry and grieve together. To go beyond necessities and create culture. To improve ourselves through learning and explore the world of our imagination. To find art and music and morality. To build lives that brief though they are somehow matter.

And so out of this thought process – forgive me if it is hard to follow - came a collection of paintings that somehow – for me at least -hangs together. All of them have harmony in them. Some the harmony of the universe, some the harmony of human life, of our rhythms and workings and here and there a little of the sublime. I hope they in some way resonate with your own feelings.

In a hand painted frame in a black / navy reminiscent of Farrow and Ball's Railings.