The Chronicle, Summer 2019

17 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Lorraine Turley

Blue Light, Iceland, oil and ink on canvas

What is your discipline? I mostly create drawings, paintings and prints and primarily use oil and ink on canvas or various papers. Where did you study? Glasgow School of Art, the Hungarian Academy of Fine Art in Budapest and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Have you always been a teacher? I was a lecturer on the BA Hons course in Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art from 1989 – 1995, started teaching in 2005 and joined St Edward’s in 2008. I have exhibited widely in Glasgow, Hungary, Oxford, London and Edinburgh. What inspires your work? My paintings evoke transient snapshots and memories of places visited - my recent work is based on memories of Scotland and Iceland.

Favourite artists? I love the work of Mark Rothko, Leonardo da Vinci, Olafur Eliasson and Artemisia Gentileschi. Rothko’s painting transports me to a place of beauty, questioning our sense of being. Leonardo da Vinci’s work is the epitome of curiosity, always searching for something. Olafur Eliasson’s installations of natural phenomena evoke both beauty and the relationship we have with nature and the earth. I admire Artemisia Gentileschi for the narrative commentary and skill within her paintings and her powerful portrayal of women.

Art. Coming from a lecturing background, I feel that St Edward’s Art Department is the closest any school can get to being an Art Foundation. We are very successful in sending our pupils to art schools, notably Glasgow School of Art, Central Saint Martins, Edinburgh College of Art and Parsons School of Art, New York – to name but a few. The pupils are wonderfully enthusiastic and a real pleasure to teach. The staff are all practising artists and work in a variety of disciplines. The success of the Department is due to the great relationship we have with our pupils and with each other. Communication and sharing of ideas is central to our teaching.  I enjoyed being given the opportunity to create designs for the acoustic baffles in the Ogston Music School. The baffles are large-scale reproductions of my paintings but they also fulfil an important function in

If you could have an exhibition anywhere in the world, where would it be? New York, Tokyo or London.

What do you enjoy about working in the Art Department at St Edward’s? I absolutely love working at St Edward’s. My particular responsibility is for A Level and IB

the acoustics of the building. www.lorraineturley.com

Crepuscular, 2015

Bidean nam Bian, Scotland, oil and ink on canvas