Archive
Born in Cornwall 1978
NJ: …What’s you’re process of gathering?
GU: …I’ve always gone out and travelled, walked, and collected things in a very direct way…it’s a very simple process. I go out, I draw something… in a very simple way…I often go back to my subjects. I grew up on a farm and became very familiar with a certain area of ground…How that ground was manipulated, the process, the seasons, the labour involved in that, and also the historical journey of that place. You could never be without that history, because you saw it everywhere. Any labour or job you were doing; if you were ploughing and pulled something up - often not very exciting things, but possibly related to someone else cultivating that ground.
So for me moving to Glasgow was quite a step…
Interviews-Artists - Nicholas James
IBSN 978-1-908419-00-2
GU: I wanted to get above the city, so it became like a field…something I could explore visually…become detached from it. So I worked from the top of Glasgow School of Art, from the printmaking building. I worked up there for about six months. It was such an enormous view, there were so many elements that I could hardly make sense of it.
But after going up there every day and working on many different things, and painting sections of it, it was like it transferred into my mind. So when I looked at it I would get somewhere a lot quicker, and I could memorise, in terms of the movement of my hand, passages of the city…because I’d drawn and drawn them…
Interviews-Artists by Nicholas James
IBSN 978-1-908419-00-2
2000
School of Painting
The Mackintosh Building
Glasgow
The Herald 23.06.2000
Exhibition: Guyana Paintings
Glasgow
GUYANA
PAINTINGS
From the Rainforests of the North East Coast of South America
by
GEOFF UGLOW
at
ASSEMBLY GALLERIES
GU: When I was a student of Glasgow School of Art I had the opportunity to go to Guyana in South America.
While I was packing my bags I remember trying to imagine what it was going to be like to paint in the Amazon Rainforest. I thought I would be presented with a kaleidoscope of colour and that all my paints would run out pretty quickly. But after I’d sailed up the river in the dugout boat with the men who were my guides, and I’d gotten settled under that vast canopy…all I could see was grey! Just shadows and dark undergrowth all around me…
I remember feeling disappointed.
But all of a sudden, beams of sunlight pierced through the gloom and dappled over the foliage…
And just at that very moment, a blue butterfly floated past
and its wings were illuminated by the light…
It was only a glimpse of the most preternatural, vivid blue against a palette of grey.
But it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life…
Student Award Ceremony, Launceston College 2024
2000
RSA John Kinross Scholarship
Florence
Studio, Cattedrale di Santa Maria Del Fiore, Florence
2001
Exhibition: Recent Paintings
Glasgow
Studio, Glasgow Green
2002
Exhibition: Nor’Loch Veiled
Edinburgh
An exhibition of work made from the dome of The Bank of Scotland
The Mound, Edinburgh
Studio in the roof, Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh
Studio, Edinburgh
…I was asking for Geoff in the foyer of the Bank. The security guard could not have looked at me more suspiciously if I had been wearing a balaclava and carrying a bag marked swag; “he’s on the roof,” I add in an attempt to remove the expression, which combines blank and wary in equal parts. With hindsight I realise that this is the type of information which would normally give cause for concern to a vigilant and security conscious guard. “Oh aye him,” replied the guard, “I don’t know what he does all day. Sometimes I think he has women up there.”
I can still hear the guards voice after the archaic lift doors have shut. It does not seem to bother him that I am not there anymore. I feel like an artistic David Attenborough as upon leaving the lift I begin to see and smell signs of Geoff, initially smears of paint and some fresh canvases and then after climbing a staircase - which would not have looked out of place on a Harry Potter film - a crazily angled roof space filled with the smell of turps and ten to fifteen canvases. They are all views from the intersecting roofs which top the Bank…
Interview: Graeme Wright
Homes and Interiors Scotland
2002
Sainsbury Scholarship 2002 - 2004
Studio, Rome
2003
Piazza Del Popolo, Rome
Studio, Rome
Piazza Del Popolo, Inverno
Piazza Del Popolo, Estate
Castel Sant’Angelo Rome
2003
Interview: Flair Magazine
Rome
2004
Exhibition: Spazi Aperti
Rome
Exhibition: Compass
Sala 1, Rome
Exhibition: Melt
Rome
Aqueducts, Amphitheatres and Roman Ruins
Ortricoli, Umbria
Studio, Ortricoli, Itlay
Printed Italian Second World War Maps
2005
Exhibition: Spent Light
Edinburgh
2005
Interview Senay Boztas
Fall
2006
Exhibiton: Responding to Rome
London
2006
Exhibition: Fabulae Narrare
Glasgow
Blossom
Painting with Corot
Tiber Rose
Waiting for San Vittorie
2007
Exhibition: Being Here Now
An exhibition of work made in the tower of Nelson Monument
Calton Hill, Edinburgh
Night Painting in Nelson’s Tower, Calton Hill, Edinburgh
Night Painting in Nelson’s Tower, Calton Hill, Edinburgh
“I get up on a high roof and the city is like a field. You get rid of the human presence and it becomes a still life.”
When Monet focused on single series subject such as haystacks, Rouen Cathedral and the River Thames, he was concentrating on the transmission of light. Geoff Uglow, anything but an Impressionist, also paints in series but has radically extended that original area of concern. Although light flickers across the rugged surfaces of his paint-encrusted canvases, it is only one element in his creative repertoire. His real goal is to represent a total experience of place and in so doing to reveal the deep meaningful truths that lie buried below the surface of things. There is something approaching alchemy about the way he uses paint on canvas not so much to depict an object as to unravel its many layers of history and meaning: for exactitude is not truth, it plays little part in the expression of myth and memory…
Interview and Article: Anne Ellis 2007
UpTown Magazine
2008
Exhibition: Fathom
London
Studio, Cornwall
2009
North Coast, Cornwall
The Meachard Island
From Penally Point, Boscastle
2009
Alastair Salvesen Scholarship
A painting journey around the coastline of Scotland including its islands
2010
Exhibition: Coda
Edinburgh
Rassella engraving by William Danielle (left)
Rassella oil on board by Geoff Uglow (right)
Interview-Artists p109 - Nicholas James
2010
Exhibition: Scotland and Rome
Edinburgh
RSA Library
It is impossible to speak of western civilization without talking of Rome, not so much on account of her former role as an imperial, conquering power but rather because of the immense cultural, artistic and law-making legacy she has left us. It might seem at first sight that Scotland was one of the peripheral areas least marked by Roman civilization but a closer look reveals profound and very close links.
This exhibition, organised by the Cultural Institute in Edinburgh aims to highlight and provide evidence for at least some of the many continuing links between Rome and Scotland over the last two thousand years. All the exhibits come from Scottish collections. Beginning with archaeological findings in Scotland, such as the Altar to Fortuna, recovered from Castlecary dedicated to the Roman goddess of good fortune (courtesy of the Hunterian Museum), it moves on to medieval evidence showing the close relationship between Scotland and the very centre of western Christianity, established in the city of Rome. Then it is the turn of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, with their interest in the rediscovered texts of classical literature, here represented by the priceless volumes from the National Library of Scotland and Scottish Catholic Archives such as the 15th Century Book of Hours and Arma Christi and the 1976 Bull of Canonisation for Saint John Ogilvie.
That extraordinary phenomenon, the Grand Tour, shows that, for the elites at least, a visit to Rome was an essential part of one’s education. This ideal itinerary is represented by paintings, drawings and prints, courtesy of the National Galleries of Scotland, among which Douglas Hamilton, 8th Duke of Hamilton (1756-1799), with Dr John Moore and Sir John Moore.
Present day connections are represented by the works of Geoff Uglow and Steven MacIver, who both graduated from art schools in Scotland and are recipients of the RSA John Kinross Scholarships to Florence, as well as the Sainsbury Scholarships at The British School at Rome.
Exhibition partners:
The Huntarian Museum
Italian Cultural Institute
The Scottish Catholic Archives
The National Galleries of Scotland
The National Library of Scotland
The Faculty of Advocates
2011
Interviews-Artists 3 Enquiries and Solutions Recordings 2011 by Nicolas James
Editor Cv/Visual Arts Research
IBSN 978-1-9084 19-00-2
2011
Exhibition: Letters From Barra
Edinburgh
NJ: Some of the Barra paintings drop into darkness, almost imperceptibly, right down.
GU: Well that’s one of my favourite pieces from the series, it's almost like smoke…the figurative element started to disappear, like not giving the story to someone.
NJ: They seem like secrets, a mystery anyway.
GU: Its been very hard for me at times, to let go of the image…I felt as if I could grab something very quickly…Thinking of Constable sketches…I think it’s something I’ll always do, but in terms of what you put into the world, sometimes you need to let the parochial go into you and then come out with something that’s universal…
Interviews-Artists 3 by Nicolas James
2013
Exhibition: Quercus Robur
Connaught Brown, London
IBSN 978-0-904152-67-8
“The other secret of Ocriculum is the people. Foremost, is the distinguished family that initially allowed us to roam their lands with our various bits of survey equipment and who welcomed us so warmly and continue to treat me as one of their own. It is a huge honour to be acquainted with the Floridi family and their genuine respect and love for the Roman site rubs off instantly on all those who meet them. I asked count Floridi to write a preface to the book for this precise reason. Archaeology is important but it is also important to understand the site in its modern context. He writes from the heart and that is what makes this site so special now. It still has meaning on a personal level.”
Dr Sophie Hay FSA
“It is for this same reason I suggested the artist, Geoff Uglow (Sainsbury Scholar at the British School at Rome 2002-4) be featured in the monograph. The perception of the site as it is now, through the eyes of an artist who lived there for two years, is as important a document as the archaeological recording of the remains. It is Geoff I have to thank for capturing the essence of Ocriculum; the overgrown but yet well loved ruins, and for making the cover of the book so evocative. These people, together with the locals who brought us fresh jam, handed us cold beers after long hot days, told us stories of hunting wild boar among the ruins, who made mead, performed gladiatorial battles in the amphitheatre, and who floated the effigy of their patron saint up a candle lit Tiber and just made us feel at home, really make Ocriculum and our project there so special and memorable…”
Dr Sophie Hay FSA
2013
Exhibition: Quercus Robur
Dusseldorf, Germany
2014
Exhibition: next year’s buds the last year’s seed
Edinburgh
2015
Exhibition: Ein Baum Ist Ein Baum Ist Ein Baum
Beck and Eggling
Dusseldorf, Germany
2014
Studio Cornwall
MMXIV Colour Diaries
Rose Garden Colour Diaries
2015
Exhibition: MMXIV
Connaught Brown
London
2016
British School at Rome
August Studio
The Garden of Ninfa
Cisterna di Latina
2016
Exhibition: A Room of Small Paintings
Edinburgh
GU: The works in this room of small paintings were made outside away from the studio. Geographically they create a triangle from the north west of Scotland to the southeast of England and west to Cornwall. Each one is painted in a single session and is a direct response to a landscape.
There is freedom working in nature…discovering a new environment and reacting instinctively to it. The place seen through the eye is the innocent starting point. As if pulling a sentence from a page of words, it is instantly somewhat comprehensible. But there is so much more to a finished painting than that.
The place where you stand has a vast history. The painter himself brings a landscape of thoughts and emotion to the scenery… these things react with one another in unpredictable ways as the brush pushes and pulls paint across a flat surface. Eye and heart, cognition and the subconscious connect through the brush. Nature speaks and reveals a facet of its character. Then the character shifts. The character is always shifting.
The painter is walking a tightrope - balancing sight with insight and feeling.
There is ebb and flow between seeing and the painting.
I paint to share a glimpse of it.
The illusion in the paint is a glimpse.
Painting is a complete sensory experience.
Geoff Uglow
Studio Gardens, Cornwall
2017
Exhibition: The Rose Garden
Connaught Brown
London
Geoff Uglow presents a new series of paintings inspired by the rose garden that surrounds his studio in rural Cornwall. Over the last ten years Uglow has cultivated the garden, gathering countless hips and seeds from his travels to Scotland and Italy to create a magnificent idyll filled with the heady fragrance and palette of nature. This vibrant new group of works celebrates the rose in its many guises: as a symbol of love, mysticism and spirituality. Inspired by the poetic resonance of the flower, Uglow also recognises the ferocity of nature which he conveys through his pulsating colour palette and technique.
Much like for artists Le Sidaner, Martin and in Claude Monet’s sublime Japanese water garden at Giverny, this rose garden has come to embody a creative and personal sanctuary for Uglow. Capturing the ephemeral beauty of these flowers in paint, Uglow responds to the fleeting moment that the rose bursts into life and then fades in a single image that can never be recreated. With strokes of sumptuous colour and light, Uglow embraces the fluid uncertainty of each canvas before the surface dries and the image is stilled.
A Godwin - Connaught Brown
Studio, Cornwall
2018
Exhibition: Ages Of Wonder
Royal Scottish Academy
Edinburgh
Eilean Donan oil on board
Geoff Uglow (B.1978)
RSA Public Collection
RSA Alastair Salvesen Art Scholarship 2009 deposit
Castle Ellen Donan
William Daniell (1769 - 1837)
A Voyage Round the North and North-West Coast of Scotland, and the Adjacent Islands. With a Series of Views, Illustrative of their Character and most Prominent Features (W Lewis, London, c.1820), printed book half bound in modern marbled boards, about 1820.
Purchased by the RSA 2016 (LIB)
2017
Exhibition: RSA Annual
Edinburgh
The Academicians Gallery
2018
Summer Exhibition: Royal Academy
London
Artists Clockwise from left: Geoff Uglow, Anselm Kieffer
2019
Exhibition: The Miniaturists III
The Scottish Gallery
Edinburgh
2019
Exhibition: Era Di Marzo
John Cabot University, Rome
Studio, Cornwall
2019
Exhibition: RSA Annual
Bed of Josephine, oil on linen
Winner of the William J MaCaulay Award
2020
In-es Art Design
Light Project
Studio, Cornwall
2021
Exhibition and Publication: ANDIAMO!
Royal Scottish Academy
Edinburgh
Cover: Jessica Harrison ‘Scooter Swarm’ 2006
IBSN 978-0-905 783-49-9
2021
Exhibition: Mythologies
Neon Gallery
The Koppel Project Exchange, London
Studio, Cornwall
2021
Exhibition: Metamorphoses
Neon Gallery
London
Ortricoli, Umbria, Italy
Tiber River, Ortricoli
Ortricoli
2021
The Tiber River
Port’Ercole
2022
Rarity Gallery Group Show
Mykonos
Greece
RARITY GALLERY is a contemporary Art gallery established by Vassilis Matsaidonis and Christos Nikolaou in 1994 in the center of Mykonos providing a space to discover emerging, mid-career and internationally renowned artists.
We are inspired by the creativity of artists and focusing to contribute to the Art scene by exhibiting for the first time in Greece insightfully selected artworks from a diverse array of established living artists. The 2022 Rarity Gallery Group Show incorporates for the first time an array of international artists including British painter Geoff Uglow.
2022
Exhibition and Auction: Me, My Brain and I
Koppel X
Christies, London
2022
Exhibition: The Ploughman
The Scottish Gallery
Edinburgh
2022
Exhibition: Chorus
Tsivrikos Shake
London
2022
La Cappella
Ortricoli
The Four Seasons, oil on board
Studio Gardens, Cornwall
2024
Montecchio
Tuscany
2024
Exhibition: Beyond the Clouds
Gallery 8
London
2024
Exhibition: Beyond the Clouds
The Scottish Gallery
Edinburgh Festival Show
