“Baltic Moon” was probably my first image that generated some interest, taken from the Millennium Bridge with the sunset reflecting in the windows.
Luke McTaggart is a painter from Amble, Northumberland. He holds a First-Class Degree in Fine Art from Northumbria University, Newcastle, a course from which he graduated in July 2022. He exhibits regularly at both the Dockside Gallery in Tweedmouth, Berwick upon- Tweed as well as at The Old School Gallery in Alnmouth.
In November 2022 he mounted a major solo exhibition titled ‘Horizons’, at the Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery in Alnwick. As well as exhibiting regularly in galleries he has had work selected for a number of open calls, including the Annual Woodhorn Museum Open Exhibition, it was in the 2022 Open Exhibition that he was awarded a Highly Commended Prize for his painting ‘Northumbrian Dusk (Fields Beyond Amble)’. He is also heavily involved in the arts scene in Amble and recently organised and curated, along with Amble artist-photographer Jim Donnelly, the Dovecote Street Show – the towns first major contemporary art exhibition which brought together the work of 50 regional artists.
Luke says “in my work I am really interested in the act of making a painting. Solving the puzzle of how to make different surfaces, forms, marks and rhythms work together as coherent and interesting image. I don’t really have the motivation to make a single kind of painting like some painters do, instead I prefer to tackle a range of subject matter, each presenting a different kind of challenge. Water, trees, sky, fog, sunrise, sunset, moonlight, all force you to push paint in new directions, seeking to match together an inward feeling and outward appearance.
“Paintings can sometimes take a day or two, other times I can work on them for months. The main underlying factor lies in the source imagery itself. All of my paintings are based upon, and drawn from, the landscape that surrounds my home in Amble, Northumberland. It is a landscape of terrific variety and one that I love deeply. I am also deeply influenced by art history and I have come to feel that it serves as a lens through which I see the world. I take comfort in the way that a certain tree can remind me of a Bruegel painting, or how the light catching a house across the street can look like an Edward Hopper. This never-ending understanding and re-understanding of the world around me through painting is what motivates me to keep trying to move forward. Painting as a way of living.”
Luke will be leading a workshop for Friends of the Hatton on 27 January 2024 entitled “Drawing from Art History”. Further details can be found here.
Friends of the Hatton 