Iain Clark is rapidly becoming known as one of Scotland’s most innovative artists. Recent shows such as ‘Inspired’ have been critically acclaimed and both serious collectors and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery now purchase his work. His canvases are suffused with light and colour, visually stunning and intellectually challenging. Iain paints, however, not with a brush and oils, but with a camera and image manipulation software. He is a photo taker, an image-maker, and in his phrase, “a hungry eye”, producing art on canvas that straddles the border between photography and painting, and causes us to re-examine and re-evaluate both these venerable arts.

Iain’s work encompasses a variety of subject matter from flowers through landscapes to cityscapes, but his abiding primary interest is the human being. His approach is both innovative and bold, challenging the conventional perceptions that surround portraiture. No concessions are made to the ego of the sitter or to artistic convention as the examples of work shown illustrate. Billy Connolly is of serious, almost vulnerable, mien, the raucous clown’s mask ruthlessly ripped away. Muriel Grey is reduced to a floating head staring at the world with fierce intensity. Painter Noah Saterstrom is at one with his canvases, as much an exhibit as an exhibitor. The striking looks and obvious photogenic qualities of fabric artist Jilli Blackwood are ignored; instead, she is reduced to outlines and colours, becoming as linear and abstract a creation as any of her own wall hangings. Nor is there any weakening of artistic intensity and vision when it comes to the self-portrait. Iain Clark tumbles through space in a wild swirl of colour, inelegant but dynamic, an image far removed from the typical laudatory self-portrait.

Iain’s work has an edge and sharpness to it, combining as it does experience, intelligence and artistic vision. Each photograph is taken with a knowing eye as well as a hungry eye. The picture is then painstakingly manipulated with imaging software further to enhance the artist’s underlying creative idea. The added intensity of colour combined with the subtraction of superfluous detail, in addition, aids in heightening the sense of tension within the image. The work of Iain Clark is undoubtedly weighty and challenging and, refreshingly, free of extraneous shock value, that childish cry for attention, which, unfortunately, pervades much of modern art. Rather, Iain is that increasingly rare breed, a highly gifted artist with, genuinely, something to say and the ability to say it. He says what he needs to, and says it well. He seeks neither to flatter nor to deceive. He is what he is, an artist with a camera, a painter with light. He has much to say and we would all do well to listen.