A Morbid Sensitivity to Surfaces: Talking Painting and Drawing - Lorna Robertson and Andrew Cranston with Liza Dimbleby

Spring Term, sees the return of the Royal Drawing School's Creative Conversations; dialogues between artists, curators and writers. Curated by Dr Claudia Tobin, lectures are held on Wednesday evenings.

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Hear Scottish artists Lorna Robertson and Andrew Cranston in-conversation with Liza Dimbleby, discussing the role that drawing plays in their paintings and their wider artistic practices.

‘In my mind and in my car’, Lorna Robertson, oil on canvas, 2023 © The artist

Lorna Robertson was born in Ayr on the west coast of Scotland in 1967. She studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee and currently lives and works in Glasgow. Robertson’s paintings sit somewhere between abstraction and figuration, a tangled game of hide- and-seek that plays with the visibility and readability of an image. She says, 

‘I often paint to find out what to paint, creating harmonies and tensions through placement of shape, specificity of colour - the process itself becoming an act of revealing.’

‘Moth’ Andrew Cranston, distemper on canvas, 2021 © The artist

Andrew Cranston was born in Hawick in the Scottish Borders in 1969 and currently lives and works in Glasgow. Often working directly onto hardback book covers his work is not pre-conceived but emerges through the manipulation of materials – paint, varnish, collage – and the suggestions that this activity provokes, layering and re-working the images until something essential coalesces. 

As Liza Dimbleby has written in a recent essay ‘…the images that are encouraged to surface are sometimes taboo; sex and solitude, death, nightmares – the ultimate questions, not without a sly humour.’

Liza Dimbleby is an artist and writer. She has exhibited in London, Scotland and Paris, and published a book of writing and drawings about walking in cities, I Live Here Now. She has written on the work of both Lorna Robertson and Andrew Cranston. She lectures at art schools and universities in Scotland and teaches on The Drawing Year. She lives and works in Glasgow.

Please note that seats are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Cover image: Detail from ‘In my mind and in my car’, Lorna Robertson, oil on canvas, 2023 © The artist

Please note this Spring Term lectures will take place either in-person at the School or online, please check the individual event listings for details.