Translators: A Duo Exhibition with Neal Greig, RUA and Philip Raskin

With technology getting more powerful every day, it’s easy to lose sight of the real world and the inspiration it brings us. Art is critical in helping us to appreciate, understand and interpret our surroundings. As we walk through the often-overwhelming world man has created, it is easy to lose touch with ourselves and become lost in the constant hum and stimulation of it. Art is the force through which we can recalibrate ourselves, a force which cuts through the busiest parts of our brains to simply be present with just yourself and something meaningful.

This exhibition aims to highlight artists as the facilitators of this phenomenon. Artists are those who have the talents and capability to translate the world and all the emotions that come from living in it into something digestible and transformative.

Neal Greig and Philip Raskin have exceptional talents for identifying and illustrating the power of our environment to move us. They highlight and interpret the elements, from the the wilds of nature to the serenity of the sublime. Neal and Philip encourage us to better understand where (and who) we are. They are true artists: translators of experience and emotion to understanding.

Neal Greig RUA

Born in Belfast in 1965, Neal has had a long and award-winning career as a painter. Neal received both his Undergraduate and Post-Graduate education here is Edinburgh at the Edinburgh College of Art (1987 and 1989). Amongst many awards, Neal was awarded the Pollock-Kasner Award from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 2011.

Neal paints with energy and feeling in every brushstroke. The essence of Abstract Expressionism is present in his semi-abstract landscapes that capture movement and atmosphere through these impulsive and powerful marks. Inspired by beloved landscapes spanning from Ireland to France. Neal’s work for Translators encapsulates the strongest stylistic elements of his oeuvre, taking us in hand as we pause all else to exist in his world.

Philip Raskin

Philip was born in 1947 and studied at the Glasgow School of Art before entering the world of business for 30 years. After this partial hiatus from his art, Philip begun his full-time career as a celebrated painter in the 90s. Philip’s work is both bold and sensitive, combining feathery light brushstrokes with a heavy but discerning impasto technique. Not only does this style perfectly capture the dynamic nature of the Scottish landscape but also creates a malleable sense of place which a viewer can get lost in and then perhaps find something unexpected.

Philip focuses on the west coast of Scotland when painting his seascapes and aims to capture a mood and feeling of privacy. He wants to paint scenes that feel allows the viewer to find peace without interruption. With, in his own words, ‘No people, no houses, no telegraph poles; just expansive skies, mist tumbling on a distant hillside and a silence broken only by lapping water and gulls ascending.’ Through his career, Philip’s goal has been simple, to turn down the volume of the world and to communicate intimately with his viewers.