Euan McGregor PAI
Euan McGregor PAI studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1994-1998 and completed a BA ( Hons ) in Printmaking. ‘I was always getting into trouble by adding printmaking to painting..which I still do’, he explains. Euan has won numerous awards at the Royal Glasgow Institute and became a Diplomate of the historical Paisley Arts Institute in 2015. From his degree show Euan won the Royal Glasgow Institute Travelling Scholarship and spent 6 months exploring and painting in Catalonia while based in Barcelona. Euan’s influences are wide and varied including Edward Hopper, Eric Ravilious, Milton Avery, Keith Vaughn and John Piper.
Euan’s work has a strong sense of shape and subject, he uses his printmaking skills to give the illusion of depth by adding texture in thinly applied layers. His work is striking, yet subtle in its makeup. Euan has a particular love of fringe or marginal spaces linking land and sea. His recent series of work took him around the UK exploring outdoor pools and lidos from some of our more established treasures to more derelict remnants of a once thriving ‘holiday at home’ culture. A defining moment in Euan’s career came in 2015 when he had a solo show in London.
With the nostalgic era of leisure time and a resurgence of public affection for their local pools, Euan depicted outdoor pools and Lidos from around the UK in a quiet yet proud manner. His paintings showed the quiet time, maybe at the start or the end of the day, it really struck a chord with people.
More recently Euan has explored Lutheran churches in Iceland and his most recent mission will be a new slant on Scotland’s whisky distilleries.
‘I have an idea which I flesh out as a photo montage, I superimpose photos and pieces of old paintings together to give me a starting point. Even at this early stage the work is undetermined and goes through a series of stripping back and layering forward to get to the desired look’.
