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James Allan Hawkins (born 14 April 1954) is a British painter and film maker associated with Scottish Highland landscape. He lives and works from his studio in Rhue, 3 miles North of Ullapool.

Early Life

Educated at Monkton Combe School, Bath James went on to study at Wimbledon School of Art, London and Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford University. After graduating he moved to the Highlands of Scotland in 1978.

Career

His early work was figurative and mostly painted outside, on-location on the West coast of Scotland. After a commission in 1986 to produce stage sets for a production of The Brahan Seer at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness his work became larger and semi abstract. He exhibited at the 369 Gallery, Edinburgh during the 1980’s and in 1989 he won Warwick Arts Trust prize. In 1996 his paintings were part of Heartlands an overview of Scottish landscape painting at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh. Commissioned to paint large polytych for Inverness airport in 2004. In 2005 he began making short video films about nature’s microcosm. In 2012 Hawkins has broken away from his traditional medium or acrylic on stretched canvas and started working with carbon fiber and core board to create freestanding irregular shaped cut-out pieces.

Style

Hawkins work has always concentrated on landscape. Early paintings were figurative painted in watercolour on location. After he turned to acrylic his practice became increasingly studio based but with reference to frequent camping and walking trips throughout Scotland. The work has been abstract at times and representational at others a progression that the artist describes as “being like climbing a spiral staircase, by turns arriving at a similar point but from a different perspective”. The surfaces of the paintings are complex and textured the artist applying paint with large painting knives and pieces of board. Most recently he has been making cut out paintings, fragments of landscape that are freestanding irregular shapes mounted on carbon fiber.

His unique style of painting straddles abstraction and figuration with dextrous ability. His rich and luscious paint surfaces are edible at times, brutally indigestible at others. Every square inch of canvas is packed with frenetic gestures and colours vibrating with energy.

Yet there is also space and serenity surrounding and cradling the seething microcosm. The hurricane driven blizzards of winter are here, the ice thin wind, the sleeting rain, the star bursts of spring and the sleeping secret places of summer; also the slow rich decay of autumn. Hawkins is a man who gets beneath nature's skin and portrays a landscape from the inside out. His personal journey maps previously unknown territory enabling us all to see more clearly the many layered riches of the special wilderness environment that is Wester Ross.

"... one of the best contemporary landscape painters in Scotland." THE SCOTSMAN

"A varied mesh of conflicting textures provide movement and life conveying the fierce power and changeability of the Highland weather." SUNDAY TIMES

"A romantic expressionist bringing burn and bracken, fern and boulder, waterfall and wild flowers to startling, explosive life." SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

"An abstract realist who invests his work with limitless energy which seems to bounce back off the multi coloured canvas. James Hawkins of Rhue is the man who has come the closest to the impossible task of capturing the essence of a landscape that is like trying to paint the colours of the wind." WEST HIGHLAND FREE PRESS

Biography

1954 Born Reading
1972-73 Wimbledon School of Art, London
1974-75 W.S.C.D. Worthing
1975-78 Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford University
1978 Moved to Ullapool, Northwest Highlands of Scotland

Select Solo Exhibitions

2012 Cutting Edge, Rhueart in Cork Street London
2009 Chronicles of the straight line Ramblers Club, London
2007 Water, Wind and Light, Kilmorack Gallery, Beauly
2006 Atlantic Coast, Duff House Scottish National Galleries, Banff
2003 Way Out West, Davies and Tooth, London
2002 Kilmorack Gallery Beauly
2001 Art on the Links, St Andrews
1999 Landscape, Colour and Light, Davies and Tooth, London
1998 A Journey in all Weathers, Davies and Tooth, London
1997 Inferences, Bellevue Gallery, Edinburgh
1996 Duncan R Millar Fine Arts, Glasgow
1993 Coventry Gallery, London
1992 Sacred Sights, C.Boyd Gallery, Galashiels
1991 Sense of Place, 369 Gallery, Edinburgh
1990 Gallerie Van Alom, Berlin
1989 Gallery 202 London
1987 Landmarks, 369 Gallery, Edinburgh
1983 McLean Art Gallery, Greenock

Select Group Exhibitions

2011 Perception, RhueArt at Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh; Scottish Housing Expo, Inverness
2009 Glasgow Art Fair
2008 Thompson's Galleries, Aldeburgh, London
2005 Millennium Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands; Kilmorack Gallery, The Gallery, Cork Street, London; Art’05 London Contemporary Art fair
Scottish Exhibition, Richmond Hill Gallery, London
2004 Thompson's Gallery Aldeburgh, London; Kilmorack Gallery, Beauly
2003 Summer Exhibition, City Art Centre, Edinburgh
2002 International Art Fair, New York; Exhibition, Fort Lauderdale, Florida USA
2001 Art'01 London Contemporary Art Fair
2001 Living the Land, Duff House, Scottish National Galleries, Banff
1997 Lineart’97, International Art Fair, Ghent
1996 ART 96, London Contemporary Art Fair
1996 Glasgow Art Fair
1996 Heartland, 20th Centaury Scottish Landscapes, Edinburgh
1995 ‘Prints for the Western Isles’, Gulbenkian Foundation
1991 Mountain Experience, Highland Region Touring Exhibition
1989 Scottish Landscape, 369 Gallery National Touring Exhibition; Into the Highlands, McManus Gallery, Dundee
1988 Light and Space, Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews; Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, 369 Gallery Edinburgh; Artravaganza, Smith Gallery, Stirling
1987 Seven Artists’ View of Iona, 369 Gallery Edinburgh
1986 McLean Biennial, Greenock
1978 369 Gallery, Edinburgh
1975 Balliol College, Oxford

Film and Video

2008 ambiEnt Festival, Brescia, Italy
2007 A Series of Fortunate Events, Inverness City Centre; Royal Scottish Academy Summer Exhibition, Edinburgh; Water, Wind and Light, Kilmorack Gallery, Beauly
2006 Atlantic Coast, Duff House, Scottish National Galleries, Banff
2005 Dreaming Spires, Edinburgh
2001 Highland Festival ‘Elements’, Animation Collaboration
1986 Biston Betularia, performance/ video

Awards and Commissions

2004 The Great Glen, Inverness Airport
1998 Scottish Art, GlenFiddich Distillery, Dufftown
1989 Painter of the Year, Warwick Arts Trust, London
1986 The Brahan Seer, Eden Court Theatre, Inverness
1976 Painting Prize, Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford University

Select Catalogues

2012 Cutting Edge
2011 Perception
2009 The Chronicles of the Straightline Ramblers Club

Collections

Gallery of Modern Art, (GoMA), Glasgow
City Art Centre, Edinburgh City Council
The Prudential
Warwick Arts Trust
Fleming Collection, London
Highland Council
Royal Bank of Scotland
Wilde Sapte, London, Brussels, Paris
Paintings in Hospitals, Scotland
Highland Regional Council
Buchanan Ingersoll, London