About me

Louise Turnbull artist at Leven beach

“Louise Turnbull’s paintings take you to another place. Like all really good painters, the marks she makes are considered, but not contrived. You can look at her work again and again and it will always seem fresh and entirely her own style.”

Becky Walker GreenGallery, Stirlingshire

“Amongst such a preponderance of skies, seacapes and fields, it is exciting to encounter the intense vitality in the mark-making of Louise Turnbull, a self-taught artist exhibiting at Pittenweem for the first time.”

Cate Newton Dundee University Review of the Arts August 2018

My process

I work on several paintings at a time, which frees me up to take risks and be alert to new possibilities, keeping the work lively.

An essential part of my practice is feeling free to respond to colour and texture intuitively, seeing where it takes me. I begin with big, bold, loose and colourful mark-making which is gradually refined to consider what to focus on, leave out, change or abandon. 

Staying open and alert to the possibilities the painting is revealing to me, I follow my intuition on which path to explore.   

Paul Klee encapsulated this: “Make chance essential. Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see. Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.”

A tactile painter, I particularly love the resilience of wood, using acrylic to quickly develop layers, sanding back and scraping to reveal underlying colour and create texture, maintaining spontaneity in my work.

My journey

I started painting seriously again in 2010 and over the years I have developed a bold, expressive style balanced with considered decision-making on composition, colour and tonality to resolve paintings.

I left my previous career in learning and development three years ago to fulfil my dream of being a professional artist. In life as in art, I feel it is worth taking risks, making a complete change of profession comparatively late.  

With that strong ethos of learning and development, I have sought out some of the best contemporary artists to study with, such as Aine Divine.  This path of creative exploration is a lifetime’s goal and I hope I can keep on taking risks and growing as an artist.

It gives me great joy when I find that someone is excited by my work. It is profoundly moving when they tell me that they connect with my art. That feeling never gets old!

I have work in private collections in the UK and internationally and have exhibited at Pitteenweem Arts Festival as well as in select galleries across central and southern Scotland.  

You can view my work via my online shop and in galleries. If you want to see my work and how I work, arrange a studio visit. Please give me a call to discuss any painting your interested in. 

Events and exhibitions

If you would like me to keep you posted about future exhibitions, please join my mailing list here.

2022

Summer exhibition, Colinton Arts (Edinburgh) summer exhibition – 23 July to 3 September

Early summer show at Greengallery (Stirlingshire) – 19 May to 19 June

Spring show at Torrance Gallery, Edinburgh – 23 April to 28 May

2021

Mixed show at Greengallery (Stirlingshire)

2020

Solo Gallery (Innerleithen)
feature show, 7 March – 4 April

Greengallery (Stirlingshire)
feature show 23 May – 6 June, plus other mixed shows throughout the year

Mixed show at Torrance Gallery (Edinburgh)

2019
Mixed shows with Moy Mackay Gallery (Peebles), Greens and Blues (North Berwick), Thistle Gallery (Glasgow), Greengallery, Torrance Gallery (Edinburgh), Velvet Easel (Edinburgh)

Pittenweem Arts Festival

2018
Mixed shows with Gallery Melrose, Moy Mackay Gallery, Greens and Blues, Thistle Gallery, Greengallery

Pittenweem Arts Festival