Some artists recoil when their work is described as self-portraiture but I don’t fit into that category . I regard everything that I draw or paint , onto board or paper - be it cats, birds, flowers or people - as nothing more nor less than a relentless striving towards a deeper level of self expression and meaningful interaction with all sentient creatures. That being so I despair that my work is not more overtly political , topical , narrative-based. I despair also that it is not more beautiful, more compassionate, more incisive. But I am grateful that I am not afraid to confront the sordid as well as the redeeming aspects of my humanity ; I live and breathe the salutary awareness that I have never been tested by torture, starvation, displacement. My hope is that within the limitations of my technical skills and experience and as a reflection of my vulnerability and soul searching there is space for the viewer to relate to the complexity of her or his own humanity.

My enduring love is literature, which explains my fascination with drawing writers, something I have done on a regular basis over a period of thirty years. The list is long: Colm Toibin, Richard Holloway, A L Kennedy, Alasdair Gray, Joy Hendrie, Kathleen Jamie and many others. 

Alastair Gray, Writer, Playwright, Artist

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them, but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.  And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?.  ”The Gulag Archipelago" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Michael Shand, Playwright, Novelist

Kafka said that the difference is not between those who terrorise and those who are terrorised, but between those who are tempted and those who are not subjected to temptation.