• Text size
  • Send this article to a friend
  • Print this article

The only way I could stay sane was to begin to be a full-time artist

At the heart of every Gerard Burns painting is a pause.

Man, woman and beast are depicted in photographic detail, in the midst of an unfolding narrative, but the scene portrayed is always a moment of stillness.

Meeting the artist himself has a similar feel. By his own admission a workaholic, it is after much planning that we sit down over coffee at his Cumbernauld home, between a client meeting and him "putting in a shift" at his workshop. It was this relentless work ethic which pushed him over the brink, ending his teaching career, and then offered him a way back to sanity.