May Open Studios 4th /5th /6th

10am-5pm each day

The annual North Fife Open studios is upon us once more.The last two months have gone past in the blink of an eye and a Susa I find myself making up for lost time. I believe this is my 10th year of taking part! I always look forward to meeting and greeting everyone and talking through my work. It lets me pause and it allows me to see my painting in a new light.

The north and the remote continue to be my muse. The sombre, last glow of winter twilight to the energising, deepening skies, mid storm. The appreciation of the ethereal, the beauty that moves on and through. I do hope you can come and spend sometime here in the studio with me and enjoy these secluded spaces.

For. a short time I will be making my new work available from my online shop too. Happy Browsing!

Discerning Eye

Earlier on on the year I made a series of new small quiet paintings. I consider them quiet because of their simplicity. It is tricky to talk about these new works. Do I need to explain them? Well, no not really yet when I am told they are not like my normal work I feel defensive. It’s difficult to encapsulate ideas and thoughts within the fuddle and muddle of the written word. Landscape is my muse and painting my medium. I sometimes think of the land as containing it’s own ideas and thoughts, these change with the day, time and season. It passes on and offers its imprint onto our psyche and souls. Past histories, fallen trees, paths overgrown, stones and hills, our acute awareness of the losses, our optimistic vision, imagination and memory. Our senses and influences are not linear nor singular. They rely on and are energised by each other - a multi directional matrix. My paintings are a reflection of this. Deeply rooted in this experience of the multi faceted nature of the land and the experimentation to find the natural language for the moment. Like the light they don’t need to be explained. Like the stones and hills they are simply there. Yet we have a need to understand. There is no need, perhaps we can just wonder.

I am delighted that two of these paintings have been selected from thousands of entries for The Discerning Eye exhibition Mall Galleries London 2023

 

Sun Set

Sun Space

 

Radio 4 Open Country programme

Inspiration on The Tay

I am delighted to share the news that Radio 4’s Dougie Vipond came to visit me back in May during my open studios event. He was recording a new programme for Open Country on Radio 4. My part was a light hearted interview (including chatting to visitors to my studio) regarding the inspiration that The River Tay has had on my work. The programme will be aired on the 6th July 3pm

“Dougie Vipond visits the River Tay, which runs from its source in the Highlands, past Dundee and out to sea. For centuries, the Tay estuary has shaped how creative people have expressed themselves. Starting at McDuff's Cross, the author Robin Crawford explains the Tay's link to Shakespeare - who was said to have drawn inspiration for his play Macbeth from this area. Pre-Raphaelite painters Turner and Millais knew the area well, Beatrix Potter imagined some of her most famous creations on the Tay's banks, and some of Scotland's best known artists such as Raeburn and Naismith depicted the landscape in their paintings. Dougie visits the studio of a contemporary landscape artist, Helen Glassford, to find out how her view of the silvery Tay continues to have an impact on artists today. “ BBC Radio 4

Produced by Ruth Sanderson

Read more here

 

Dougie Vipond and Helen Glassford In her studio in Newport on Tay

 
 

Modern Masters London

London 6th-9th June

I am honoured and grateful to be included in 10 YEARS OF MODERN MASTERS exhibition in London hosted by The Scottish Gallery.

“…We present an exclusive collection of post war and contemporary paintings in London…”

Artists include ; Barbara Balmer, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, John Bellany, Elizabeth Blachadder, FCB Cadell, Doug Cocker, Victoria Crowe, Alan Davie, Joan Eardley, JD Fergusson, Ian Fleming, Alexandrr Goudie, Lachlan Goudie, Derrick Guild, John Houston, GL Hunter, Angie Lewin, William McTaggart, James Morrison, Alberto Morrocco, Lean Morocco, Lilian Neilson, Denis People, SJPeploe, Robin Philipson, Anne Redpath, James Downie Robertson, Duncan Shanks, Janise Yntema.

For further information please visit this link to the exhibition. Modern Masters London

Opening Times | London
Tuesday 6 June 12noon – 5pm
Wednesday 7 June 11am – 6pm
Thursday 8 June 11am – 6pm
Friday 9 June 11am – 3pm

Gallery 8, 8 Duke Street, St James’, London, SW1Y 6BN

I will be present in the gallery at the champagne reception 6-7.30pm. Please get in touch with the gallery for details. mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk

 
 
 

Solo Exhibition • Every Waking Moment at Strathearn Gallery

Every Waking Moment - Helen Glassford - 27th May to 25th June

For more details please visit the Strathearn Gallery website


Each landscape, has an atmosphere and climate of its own. As you turn the corner and face the sun, the wind now at your back, the ambience shifts. With you and you within it.

 

This is an exhibition, about these moments, the natural language of nature and the connections we have with it. Noting the shifts in air, light, wind, the fast and fleeting flurries, interspersed with slower, timeless pauses.  Light diamonds dance on the lochan, choreographed by the north wind. Disappearing as quickly as they came by the orchestration of passing clouds. Almost imperceptible changes but there all the same. At other times peaty darkness drives through with January squalls leaving a noisy presence that lingers. Later, a silent twilight which has an awareness of its own. Every minute the atmosphere changes we are simply the participants or perhaps custodians of those moments. They are there to be sensed, there to be noticed and to be part of and inspired by.   

 

These oil paintings are my way of communicating what I see and experience when in the landscape whether it be in North East Fife where I live or in the more remote areas that I love to explore, in the hope that others may see it and experience it too.

 

 
 

Open Studios

It gives me great pleasure to invite you to my Open Studios Exhiibition. Sat 29th Sun 30th April, Mon 1st May 10am-5pm. Once a year I take part in the North Fife Open Studios. Free entry to the creative spaces of 73 artists and makers in North Fife. For more information and directions please visit the Open Studios website

My studio address is 8 Wellpark Terrace East, Newport on Tay, Fife DD6 8HT. 07768 481751 I look forward not meeting and greeting many people over the bank holiday weekend.

Events at The Scottish Gallery

Matterport virtual tour. (Please see images for true colour)

I have three forthcoming events at The Scottish Gallery in conjunction with my solo exhibition Encounters. Please see below for details

Meet The Artist in The Gallery • Saturday 2nd April - 11am - 1pm • I will be in the Gallery on Dundas Street meeting and greeting visitors and chatting about my work. See link for details. There is no need to book this event just turn up.

Meet the Artist on Zoom • Tuesday 5th April - 5pm • I will be in conversation with gallery director Tommy Zyw talking about my process and ideas behind my solo show. See link for details - Please sign up for this event

Online Exhibition Tour • Join me for a personal online tour of my exhibition with The Scottish Gallery. PLease sign up for this event.

 

Encounters at The Scottish Gallery

Exhibition Dates

31st March -30th April

Preview 30th March

Idling • Oil on Board • 2021

“It seems appropriate for me to define the experience of landscape as chance meetings, or encounters, with the influence of that experience going beyond the purely elemental. It is internal and peripheral, time and touch, mood and memory. It imprints its character on the psyche, leaves traces in the memory, and strays far beyond any physical map……” Helen Glassford . Excerpt from Encounters Catalogue 2022

I am delighted to say that my debut solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery is now live on line. It has been an incredible nine months of travel and preparation as I have journeyed through a body of work that includes landscapes inspired by an early Winter visit to Assynt and a Summer trip to The Western Isles and St Kilda. There was so much I wanted to say with paint but feel this curation encompasses the true nature of the Encounters I experienced. My hope is, that you too can experience them.

The exhibition will go live on The Scottish Gallery website on the 22nd March. If you are signed up for my mailing list I too will notify you of this. The Exhibiton will be launched on the 30th March and open to the public from the 31st March.

The Gallery have made a beautiful catalogue to accompany the exhibition. If you wish to purchase it please follow the link below.

It is my privilege to have created this body of work, my thanks go to The Scottish Gallery for inviting me.

Studio Collection

I am delighted to announce that on Friday 11th February I will be releasing a new Studio Collection. Over the past year I have worked on both oils and water based paintings simultaneously. The majority of the oil paintings will be shown at my solo show at The Scottish Gallery at the end of March 2022 but I’m happy to be able to make the works on paper available now. Please keep checking the Buying page throughout the day or sign up to my mailing list to be notified in advance.

Tatha Gallery Summer Show

Outside - Inside

31st July -28th August

Works can be viewed on my paintings page here

I am delighted to share the news that I will be once again exhibiting at Tatha Gallery. It’s been eight months since I left the role of co-founding director so I am thrilled to be back showing my work in the beautiful and familiar space.

This body of work has developed intuitively as my mind wandered to the hills and coasts. The six vertical format pieces named Bleached, Hidden Lochan, Boundless, Cadence, Revel and Shroud were all inspired by moments of reverie and places of mystery and remoteness. Andrew Greig’s Loch of the Green Corrie came to mind for the secretive mountainous images as did the poetry of Norman MacCaig.

The larger pieces in the show; Quell, Time Out and Incoming Tide are peripheral places that have taken on the personality given to them by the light and air of the moment. All suggestions their own way of a new day, a new time, a new hour whilst being contemplative and ever aware of the present.

It is a pleasure to be showing this body of work in my home town and I hope very much that you will take a moment to enjoy

Incoming Tide • 48x122cm

Incoming Tide • 48x122cm

Everything In-Between • Solo Show at Resipole Gallery • 2021

Eight years ago I visited the Resipole Gallery on a research mission. I was in the early stages of designing and building up the business model for Tatha Gallery and wanted at the time to visit most galleries around Scotland. The bonus with visiting Resipole was not only enjoying the wonderful gallery space but I managed to climb a couple of Munros on route; a win win.

I was delighted to be asked to show my work. The remote location pairs so well with my painting and ideas and as a result I have enjoying exploring the wild to the full.

Everything In-Between • Oil on Board • 48x122cm • 2020

Everything In-Between • Oil on Board • 48x122cm • 2020

Everything In-Between 30th May - 9th July 2021

READ THE ART NORTH REVIEW OF MY SOLO SHOW HERE

See exhibition here Resipole Gallery or in the On-line catalogue

Works can also be seen on my Paintings 2021 page

To paint the landscape as I do means to interact with and explore the intimate and curiously infinite world. The lichens and mosses at our feet and the heavy skies above, the ground and roof to our world and everything in between. Encountering the effects of weather patterns and atmospheric shifts on rugged coastlines, cliffed ridges, dark waters, soaring stone or windswept beaches are just part of the story. Each place we visit has multiple elements of influence upon us. I see them as moments but they are almost immeasurable. As we walk on the sodden moors into the shadow of the raincloud we step directly into the cloud’s influence. Our eyes adjust and our senses sharpen. If only for a moment we become part of something else. A changing contoured space, peat bogs absorbing light, lochans reflecting. Sunlight spilling over distant mountain ridges, earthy aromas at your feet as you tread through the undergrowth. The shadow of the cloud not only defines the undulating fabric of the land but also the mood. It seeps into our skin if we allow it and the personality of the visual and sensory world meld together. 

 These moments are my subject, these moments take on a painterly form.