Join us for a wide-ranging discussion about art, process and imagination with best-selling Edinburgh artists, Louis McNally and Arran Ross.
SUMMARY
This first part of an artist talk at Graystone Gallery focuses on Arran Ross, a Leith-based artist whose work is characterized by vibrant, atmospheric canvases and sculptures with dreamlike sci-fi elements. Much of the conversation centers on his signature astronaut motif, which appears in several paintings displayed at the gallery.
Arran shares how his recent brighter palette was influenced by an unexpected year spent in Cyprus during lockdown, where he received a substantial PPI settlement that allowed him to travel just before Brexit. He describes working in primitive conditions reminiscent of his grandfather's Highland croft, surrounded by overgrown plants in what he calls a "jungly" environment. This experience, combined with his childhood in the Scottish Highlands, significantly influenced his use of more vibrant colors.
The talk explores the thematic elements in Arran's work, particularly the recurring astronaut figure that represents isolation, vulnerability, and the human journey. Unlike superhero representations, his astronaut is deliberately non-muscular and often depicted in awkward, childlike poses that suggest vulnerability. Arran connects this imagery to themes of isolation and inner space, explaining that while the astronaut appears to be exploring outer space, the paintings are actually about exploring inner space and the recognition that we won't "get off this planet fast enough."
Arran also discusses his artistic influences, including Henry Rousseau and science fiction media from his childhood like Doctor Who, as well as the music scene in Leith after Trainspotting. The conversation touches on his painting process, his movement from darker to brighter palettes as he's aged, and the relationship between isolation and artistic creation.
TRANSCRIPT
So I appreciate you all being here.
Just a little bit of housekeeping before we get into it. For those of you who don't know your way around here, the restrooms are at the back there, just on the left-hand side. We have drinks to the back there as well, if you haven't already got one. I think most of you've got drinks, that's good.
Fire exit is there. There's only the one exit and apologies if you heard my bad jokes before, but if there's a fire, run that way through the door and outside.
We promised you an evening of erudition, information, and entertainment. At least one of those three will be coming along tonight. And we are now live streaming on Instagram. Please do not swear. The camera is not on you, dear members of the audience. It's just on us, so you don't have to worry about whether you've got the right level of makeup on. I'm talking particularly about the guys, but we've all been made up professionally.
Just a little introduction to us. Obviously you know that's where the Graystone Gallery. My name is Rob Briggs and I'll be your host for tonight. I'm the co-owner and founder of the gallery, along with my beautiful wife Lesley who I'm sure most of you know at the back there.
And these are to my left, Louis McNally and to my right, Arran Ross. They're both taking part in our summer exhibition. You can see a selection of their fine works behind us at the moment.
The way in which this is going to work tonight is that I'm going to interview each of them in turn and then we'll start a conversation. What I would strongly encourage you to do please is interrupt. If there is a point that you would like to clarify, if there's a question you have, please just stick your hand in there or interrupt us as we go along and gentlemen I'd like you to do the same as well.
This is not a formal occasion. This is a conversation that I hope you're going to enjoy. As I say, find informative and entertaining. So I'm just going to give a little bit more of an introduction to these guys and then I'm going to start over here with Arran and we'll have a conversation and then I'll have a conversation with Louis and then we'll mix it up a bit.
The whole event should last no more than about 90 minutes, but that dear audience is up to you. If you have lots of questions and lots of ideas that you'd love to explore, more than welcome to carry on. We'll have a break approximately 35, 40 minutes in for you to recharge your glasses. And then we'll see how things go after that, whether we need a further break or whether we just carry on. Depends on how much we're enjoying ourselves and I hope that each of you do tonight.
So without further ado, Arran. Arran is a Leith-based artist who's developed his own inimitable style over the last 30 years. He's a previous winner of the Pollock Krasner and J D Fergusson Awards. His work is characterized by vibrant atmospheric canvases and sculptures with a dreamlike sci-fi twist. He's best known for his astronaut motif which you can see in some of the paintings here and also if you don't want to crane your neck there's another big astronaut one behind you. And he's increasingly sought out by collectors at home and abroad. So Arran, welcome.
Arran Ross: There's quite a variety of work on the wall. There's some landscape pieces as well, the tree paintings. There's quite a bright theme going through the color recently. So I'll probably start maybe go back the way, maybe start with this guy up here. Again feel free to sort of interject if you see or something cursory as I'm going along.
These very bright colors were paintings were produced in Cyprus where I ended up for about a year over lockdown, quite out of the blue really. I got this opportunity—I actually had PPI money which resulted building up after quite a lot of debt I incurred when I was in America years before.
I had a show there and basically what happened is 9/11 came along and that scuppered me going back. So got left with this kind of debt and basically in January 2020 I'd written to American Express with a PPI claim myself. And they sent me a check for quite a lot of money. I'd thought this great because we've saved up this travel grant for all these years. And it was massive compared to what I thought it would be. It was five figures, so incredible.
Anyway the chance built up in stages and I remember this college which I'd been to—it's a kind of college I'd heard about a friend of mine being there. So I wrote to them and they said come if I could get all the tests and stuff like that. So I ended up basically getting tests and it came through about two in the morning when I was about to shut the computer off thinking it wasn't going to happen. And got a negative Covid test and was on the airplane.
So I knew it would be an open-ended trip and also felt I'd quite like to beat Brexit, you know. So ended up just heading off there and then staying a year basically just ended up like that.
I had to live in quite primitive conditions actually, it's quite sort of like stepping back into time because there like old farm cells and quite a lot of Cyprus been—you know like the Turkish population would have had to move with partition. I'd seen a lot of this stuff as well when I was young and it kind of fascinated me then.
I'd grown up with my grandfather's Croft so it was a bit like going back in time for me where you just had a kind of stone floored room and no air conditioning, nothing like that. It was somewhere hadn't changed much for 30 years. It's like a gas hob and these cats.
Immediately around about the whole place was all this kind of jungle—it was really overgrown with all these plants all over the place, so it's a bit like maybe a bit like remember the eight hour up as well where you had that sort of jungly feel. But something slightly British about it because there's quite a lot of other people on that side who came from London. Particular connection with England with it being Cyprus.
This particular tree here was a tree in in the Turkish ground where a lot of these wasteland areas are you're not allowed to really do anything with it. It's just left as part of the agreement as it was. So wouldn't pick the fruit or anything like that.
Rob: Is that just a bit of wasteland or is that a part of an orchard, you know?
Arran: Yeah, I mean this was set in at the back just in a what would have been an orchard. I kind of looked at the painting and I drew—I just thought I'll paint it one day and then I went and painted an oil. The studio I had was outside anyway in the shelter of this which was just a big tin shed. This was a pomelo out the back but I changed things around. I put the sea—it's not there. Just been in the landscape.
The other one there is a bit more of a fantastic thing where probably better known for that character which has emerged out of quite a lot of different characters. It's sort of—you know in a way a bit like Gormley uses his motifs so it's a kind of 21st century futuristic kind of Gormley figure that keeps coming back. He casts himself. I just I quite like the anonymity of the figure, you know, it's got a mystery about it.
One of the painters that really influenced me when I was growing up is Henry Rousseau, the primitive painter. My mother who was also an artist studied at Dundee. There's one actually a sleeping gypsy poster.
There's a bit about that about it. The man who fell to Earth, this motif—I think part of the whole serious side of there's a jocular side to the space narrative but part of the narrative as well is about how the figure doesn't really leave the Earth, you know. It's actually more a bit of a journey through inner space.
And there's kind of layers of commentary I would say about where we are as individuals that we're not going to get off this planet fast enough really. And neither is this figure, you know. It's sort of balloons. So it's a sort of celebration of the world that actually we have around about us, you know. And it's a bit like myself suddenly finding myself in this incredible landscape or like we all do. Imagine finding a planet like this in the universe, you know. Sort of it's reversing the kind of narrative about that.
Rob: I love the way the luscious through. I was trying to put my finger on.
Arran: Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of and that's absolutely right, isn't it? It's sort of these kind of slightly awkward figures that you're doing.
There's earlier pieces there that are very somber and quite dark and quite a limited range of colors, you know. So they're built up over quite a time these—they're quite flippant ideas in some ways but they're quite carefully balanced and worked over a period of time, you know, maybe have four, five or maybe 10 paintings on the go. And then just layer them up.
It's quite interesting try to get the intensity of color abroad and sort of I've heard people talk about that when they come back it's like somebody turned the lights off, you know. And how people see things which I'd never really experienced before. I think when you're in bright bright light it can be a bit like you tendency can actually paint quite dark. Because your eyes are sort of almost the way the cones and the rods behave, the particles in your eyes, isn't it?
Rob: Yeah. And your receptors.
Arran: I think in my room when I've got in my workshop it's like a transparent sort of roof to get the light in and I always feel that when you're painting it they look a lot sort of darker and I think that may be because there's a lot of light trying to compensate.
Rob: Yeah. Because it washes it out I think as well. And you think it washes it out and then you try to compensate for that and when you get to the gallery and you see it in the gallery, oh good that's.
Rob: Arran, I'd like to build a little bit on what you were saying there. And ask you a bit more about when you can tell a painting is finished or is a painting ever finished?
Arran: That's a good one, that one. I think it's all pretty much there but I mean I think this one over here sometimes wonder about. But you tend to do that I mean if you're particularly if you're fresh—you know if it's not had the chance of time for you to distance yourself from it. It's quite hard to see that I think until it's on the gallery wall as well. It's the study of that one because it's different from the others. It doesn't have the same kind of mood.
Rob: That's one.
Arran: Sometimes just there.
Rob: Well there's definitely that element in the work as well because it's—there is a kind of edge about it. It's got that slight Kubrick thing as well going on the sort 2000 you know that.
Rob: It's almost like he's divorced from the landscape where he's elsewhere.
Arran: Well there's definitely that element in the work as well because there is a kind of edge about it. It's got that slight Kubrick thing as well going on the sort 2000 you know that. There's some of the earlier pieces there that are very somber and quite dark and quite a limited range of colors, you know.
Rob: So the break in what to do with the cyclist.
Arran: Well, I was kind of heading a little bit that way anyway. I think as I've got older it's good to cheer yourself up a bit. You know it's more—I don't know what it is. It's a sort of counterbalance—just emotionally I feel more drawn to brighter colors I think as time's gone on.
Rob: Can I ask you then in terms of I guess emotional balance, not your own. Excellent. But a lot of the figures that you have in your paintings are isolating. We totally touched on it before. They're also isolating professions as well. So an astronauts, a diver, a frogman. These are all where you—the surroundings around you. I mean you're cut off from well not quite cut off but but it's difficult to communicate you're an isolated figure. You're in a dangerous environment and you're insulated from that. Can we expect to see in the future more figures in your paintings, perhaps a movement towards more inclusivity, togetherness. I don't know. Do you feel that that as you're getting happier brighter palettes etcetera is that.
Arran: The mood is a little bit more of a well I don't know what to say. It's cheery either. It's got a wee bit of an edge about it as well but it's a little bit more of a peaceful figure or a child or you know that kind of cherubic kind of thing. Slight seal like maybe as well. But it's kind of beach a little bit helpless. It's kind of like an idea of paradise but it's not quite you know like Gulliver's Travels—the time travel races that's what that one was called.
Rob: And what's the background? It looks kind of five.
Arran: It's I never—one of my habits is I tend to just make the landscape up. So obviously a Scottish landscape that one I think. It looks like if you're out my window. Yeah. And I've spent a lot of time isolating that time. So you know I grew up in the Highlands so gradually the landscape has got into my psyche here more. And with the sort of more like desert like pieces then it's kind of that settled and then mixed with that so that the colors are a lot brighter now. I always attracted to bright colors so apart from that you know right light.
I used to make sort of installations where there was quite a few figures and in most of my work kind of warfare images and the that specific character developed out of that kind of series and went a different way works.
It is about the figure as well there's a kind of sense about you know we are kind of alone in a lot of ways through in this life you know we're travelling through it and you know it's that kind of feeling there's quite a reflection about that inner space and it's sort of sometimes almost between you know it's between one world and another one.
Rob: The challenge in you would quite like to see his family.
Arran: Yeah his misses and his kids. Well there's a few of them about you know. They these are mine as well. That's got one made—that's got one there by a private collection that's different.
When you're making them I take photographs and the way that's gonna work itself because the whole process becomes like a kind of—
Rob: Is that the same guy the orange guy and the orange guy?
Arran: This guy is more like a diver this one here, the one at the end. He's a diver recently.
Rob: Yeah yeah he's a diver. So they're the same person?
Arran: Yeah.
Rob: Excellent so I can get painting that matches the—
Audience Member: I left my husband at home.
Arran: Yeah that's a good idea usually. It can work the other way as well it's just—you know try try to get two people agree in one thing that's like an artwork can be tricky.
Rob: There's an element of your work that fascinates me well actually there's two particular elements of your work that that fascinate me that I'd like us to dive into just a little bit more now. One is mythology and one is music. I suspect music is perhaps an easier one to start with and I'd like to touch on mythology but can you explain to us the influence of music on your work? It obviously comes through in some of the titles.
Arran: It would be definitely run a lot. I mean there'd be a lot of music playing in my studio. I used to play music. I don't discuss it much now because somebody gets a guitar out amongst friends. I used to sort of play with other folk and write the actual songs, and I still write a little bit anyway. My mother was a pianist as well but there's definitely a lot about the children's sort of that kind of era in the sixties of these amazing film—you know like the kids programs we had like well Doctor Who would be one of them but they're always sort of ones during the day Mr Ben and all that stuff.
I could remember all of these tunes and I can still remember a lot of the lyrics still that stuff—the kind of cartoon. So it's just there, but it's not a very high-fi stuff not like a big sci-fi buffer such. I mean like Star Trek but you know it's things like Pink Floyd obviously and you know some like David Bowie or that there'd be a big direct influence with that stuff but there's probably quite a lot of maybe more technological music and the in the kind of Leith stuff particularly that started at that time of you know just after Trainspotting came in and the port of Leith and all that stuff.
That kind of mixture of music—it somebody once said it's a bit it was like going into the bar in Star Wars. The port Leith was like that, different characters basically.
Rob: Yeah yeah different planets.
Arran: Run by a kind of genius that would be the only person that you could run that you know. So like a lot of that did feed in that kind of space cadet type imagery of clubbing people and that sort of kind of culture.
Rob: You just kind of described most of the pubs in Leith haven't you?
Arran: Yeah that time. There was a big show that was in Ocean Terminal. I had a few at the time so it's a strange time just after Gulf War or during it because a lot of what I was doing was pretty relevant to that and it wasn't very popular a lot of places—the art establishment wouldn't show it and I can see why in some ways but but a lot of other informal places showed it. I had a show at Ocean Terminal so they had this big club night there with flashing lights and all these big huge wood carvings and it was absolutely perfect for it really it was like an installation anyway with people there.
Rob: I think there's there's a couple of observations I'd like to make on that art and one is having watched and enjoyed Mr Ben in the seventies because yes I really am that old. He used to go into the shop didn't he—he go into the shop and then he'd try on a different costume and become a different character and and perhaps that's something that comes through in the main figures in your work.
Arran: Yeah.
Rob: I'm not saying you're directly influenced by Mr Ben but but maybe there's a little bit there the other thing that interestingly you mentioned was Doctor Who. Now the interesting thing about the doctor as a character in that TV show is that generally he or she is positioned as being observed by other people. We don't often or we don't normally learn about their adventures from them themselves. It's the relationship that we have through interacting through the companions who are much more like us much closer to us than this distant being.
So in some ways I'd suggest to you—I'd like to kind of comment on this—I'd suggest to you that the characters that come through in your paintings are almost like that, not necessarily unknowable but it's our interaction with your characters that forms the narrative as much as seeing the painting itself.
Arran: Yeah there's an impenetrable element about about it and it's kind it's like that Sphinx thing very multifaceted I think and you're hence the mood about the surroundings a lot and the way that's interacting. So the whole landscape and maybe even you know the creatures—the animal inclusion and there's quite a major sort of influence also on the Egyptian type of thing at that time that that cropped up you know the Tutankhamun's tomb and all that kind of that installation of that tomb like seeing that when I was young.
I mean that would probably be easily my favourite artwork of all time you know and people would talk about installations as if they were new but I mean these kind of installations were always there.
Audience Member: Interesting, because I was I'm going to age myself a little thinking back to his house.
Arran: Yeah puppets because it's almost like it's a puppet on that.
Rob: Yeah larger than a person in the landscape.
Arran: I mean you've kind of with all of these sort of things you've got a—I mean particularly with a cartoonist it's how you're able to get a character to work that's maybe simple like Tom and Jerry or something and how that is different to another mouse or whatever. I find out with this character a lot you could you could just think well I'll just plonk it in there but it's kind of crafting of it—as you'll know yourself it's not just a building you've got to really work at that idea because it could look really quite stupid.
Audience Member: You don't have things for those of us that can't quite afford the paintings do you?
Arran: We're thinking about it I'm thinking about—
Audience Member: Yeah yeah maybe very happy.
Arran: Yeah it's a toss up between the art and the person but I definitely couldn't afford the big one behind me I can't really like print that one.
Rob: The big one?
Arran: The one with the balloons there. That one has actually been scanned for long enough so you're kind of lucky we can print that.
Rob: What you can actually do as well they actually have a copy of that in the depths so you can see the actual copy quality that you'll get from it the depth on the—
Audience Member: Almost difficult to take a photo.
Arran: They've got like a—I mean sometimes the print there's an art to doing printing and all that stuff. These guys can get it wrong like anything but they did a particularly good one of that where the colours really come out well and it's on the wall. I quite like doing that of just putting a piece out there as well that you wouldn't normally think.
Especially there's more sort of sci-fi stuff now that's similar to this but I think when I was doing that there wasn't very much actually in the fine art field like that. It was I'd say a lot more conceptual for one thing but I quite like the idea of just when when you put these to be seen by people.
There was a big one like that which I still think's the best one which somebody bought from the bar and I didn't photograph it and it was about five foot by four and it was the bands used to play there a lot more so it just went with the music and so you know you get people talking to you about it quite in depth about the painting but it didn't have digital cameras in these days so it's a different story.
The other one I think maybe other bit it's a picture of it it's a bluer version that with an owl on it again and that got bought by somebody quite quickly at opening.
Audience Member: I'm going to express my being there.
Arran: Yeah well I think there's we've there was been a big uh data breaches we talked at some might stuff got—shouldn't say that but anyway who knows there'll be a company out there want to to do it but surprisingly you can sometimes do it yourself.
Audience Member: Yeah no with astronaut you've got it more you know lying down is there is that was that a particular choice do you have other paintings where with an astronaut standing up?
Arran: It's just not there's not there—and there's photographs as well with a kind of model in the landscape that are they're not photoshopped they're they're put out there.
I guess there's broadly speaking there would be four main stances. Some weird aren't you going with there you know he just does the one thing apart from the running light that obviously but this one that's kind of like Tai Chiish one the Buddha sort of stance lying down one and then there's a standing one and it's usually got a slight awkward little movement just that sort slightly vulnerable childlike thing.
So a lot of the sci-fi stuff sort of superheroes and muscles and all that stuff I always thought that was I never got that because why do you need all these muscles if you've got all that technology.
Audience Member: Just yourself.
Arran: Yeah I mean I think that also painting is quite an isolated way of looking at the world little gravity you've got the same thing.
Audience Member: Yeah it's I guess the idea that you know there it's just coming down and that soft bed off.
Rob: It looks like he's standing in this gentle.
Arran: It's uh say the man who fell to Earth is kind in there—there was a series there so I'll go back to the series of that one. You don't want to paint by popular demand but some things constantly come up good ones.
Rob: Just touching on mythology then and storytelling. You've mentioned a number of times about the the man who fell to Earth also see a David Bowie film and again reflecting on themes of isolation. So when you think about the types of stories you're trying to tell either through the figure the figurative ones or through the trees the landscapes, what what are those narratives what what's the message if you like that you're trying to get across to the viewer?
Arran: Well the isolation aspect. I think it is just that isolation thing—it's you know I think a lot of the landscape that I grew up in in the Highlands or whatever and so if you went—I like sky you would see a lot of people but other places you'd just maybe see nobody and there's something quite free about that.
I remember thinking you know imagine how scary it would be going camping yourself so I've never watched any other films since you know because that was the thing that would put you off. Whereas actually being in a place yourself is quite different—it's a whole different thing to your state of mind and the way you deal with things and it's a funny thing time isn't it but if you spend that time out in a wilderness for maybe four days then it could seem like a year almost.
I just quite like the—I think it did strike me about what Buzz Aldrin said about it all as well actually. Captain Kirk said that William Shatner at age 90 went up on the was it Jeff Bezos's spaceship to the edge of space.
I mean it's all struck me from having watched that stuff at that age you know how pretty really out there that would be. Because a lot of that exploration is just one person going up a mountain but I mean they might have another one behind them but they're going to be the one that's up there first or you know you're in a diving bell or whatever but again that's that thing you're in life there is that element to you as well it's what lies beyond this one.
There's that element about the spaceman I don't sound morbid about it but I grew up being interested in archaeology and all that sort of stuff so it's a part of what you're dealing with. You're dealing with things that are no longer there physically.
Yeah we're we're on a journey and you meet people along the way in life I think. This is great—I quite like travelling more than that but I think it probably scared me a bit in at first but it's like anything else once you actually get on involved in something. You don't have anybody to translate for you or whatever so people have to you have to adapt to what's there and it just puts you in a different frame of mind.
It's great to do these things together with folk as well it's not it's not that but you're not going to argue with anybody, just yourself.
I mean I think that also painting is quite an isolated way of looking at the world, you know, it's it's just you and that thing. And actually when I'm painting I don't feel sociable at all, whereas if I'm doing sculpture I feel much more sociable because you're dealing with people on asking them how you've got to mix stuff and then you need to give your hand to move it and everything else. So it's a kind of totally different way of approaching things, you know.
Rob: So I think that's a good point to take a break.
Arran: Aye.
Rob: Yeah. So please um put your hands together. Arran Ross.
