Best Coffee in Town, 48x48 inches, oil on canvas
In the Lagoon, Venice, 20x18 inches, oil on linen
Charles Jamieson MFA PAI PPAI
1 – 29 March 2004
Monday – Saturday 10am–5pm
0131 225 6540
art@doubtfiregallery.com
www.doubtfiregallery.com
The launch of a major solo exhibition at Doubtfire Gallery in Edinburgh by award-winning Scottish
artist Charles Jamieson consolidates an already formidable reputation for a body of work that is warm,
accessible and highly distinctive.
His only previous Scottish solo show was in Glasgow in 2007 – the four-week Doubtfire show which
opens on 1st March is his first solo appearance in Edinburgh, although his work is familiar to collectors
from numerous shows around the UK over the years.
With a deft touch and a strong palette of colours, Jamieson has a gift for capturing the warmth, light
and vivid tones of sun-drenched locations around the world – buildings, land, deep blue skies and
dazzling seascapes. “Painting the heat and light is hugely important to me,” he says. “Strong colours
are so satisfying to work with. I don’t do angst. I’m really a happy, positive person.”
His bold, confident paintings have won a growing following for the Ayrshire-based artist, including
novelist John Le Carré, comedian Harry Enfield, TV journalist Kirsty Wark and actress Keeley Hawes.
Jamieson’s work also appears in the offices of The Prudential, Biggart Baillie, Caledonian Breweries
and in many other corporate and private collections in the UK and abroad.
A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, Jamieson has divided his career between art and acting. On
returning from a two-year art scholarship in Texas, acting became his main source of income. The
security of a six-year stint in STV’s long-running drama Take The High Road coincidentally gave him
the freedom to develop his painting style and by 2000, after a successful solo show in Hampstead, he
was able to turn to painting as a full-time occupation.
In addition, he was involved in part-time teaching in the Textile Department at Glasgow School of Art
for a few years. (He still keeps his hand in with acting, though, including a recent role in BBC
Scotland’s River City and in This September, a mini-series made for German television in which he
played Charles Dance’s heart surgeon.)
Solo exhibitions, almost on an annual basis, followed. Although his work has often appeared with that
of fellow artists in Scotland, the show at Doubtfire Gallery is only his second solo exhibition in his
home country.
The work reflects his travels around the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the United States.
Childhood family holidays around Europe left him with a lifelong love of travel, accompanied, of
course, by his watercolours, charcoal and sketchbook.
“My idea of heaven is to be somewhere hot in the middle of the day with a sketchbook and a camera,
collecting images to take back to my studio. Once there, I lose myself in the memory of those
moments.
“I also pursue an avenue of painting which involves still life … often flowers with an exotic textile or a
made-up series of images mixing still life with seascape.”
Doubtfire Gallery can provide digital images of Charles Jamieson’s work.
For more information, please contact:
Jim Middleton, Jane Muir or David Frame at art@doubtfiregallery.com
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