Face to Face: John Lowrie Morrison

Now he has a new show in Glasgow, which opens at the Mitchell Library this week. He is calling it a "pop up studio show". It will be a family affair: his sons, his wife Maureen, will be manning the show. There will be 60 new paintings and 30 in a small retrospective section. Morrison will also reveal some artistic surprises.

When we talk, Morrison is relaxed and smiling in his open and spacious home studio. We are discussing his latest show. In a sense, because of the Glasgow connection, he sees the show as a kind of homecoming. In particular, the show will feature a flavour of the major retrospective of this work which was staged at the Clydebank Town Hall Museum & Gallery in 2013. The show was a success attracting more than 20,000 visitors. It was a long way from when, as a student, he hung his work on the railings of Glasgow's Botanic Gardens.

In the new show, there is fresh work, some which observers of his work may say is unusual work for Jolomo. There are some large new landscapes, which, unlike his signature square paintings, are sizeable and rectangular: the biggest he has painted in 40 years. His ideas for new work, he says, are ever changing. 2017 will mark 30 years since he became a painter full time. He shows no sign of stopping. He says he still paints ‘spontaneously’ and tries to finish a canvass in a day.

Morrison, in denim, bearded, is in a breezy mood when we speak: he admits to feeling relieved the organisation for the Glasgow show is about done. He is relaxed in his studio on the west coast he loves, near Tayvallich. He says: “I am not slowing down anytime soon. I will paint forever. I am not doing as many shows - I used to do, say ten years ago, fifteen shows a year of all different sizes. Now it’s eight, and I think I will take that down again. As you get older your energy levels go down.”

Morrison was born in Glasgow in 1948. He adds: "I am not that far off 70 - I am 67 this year - and your energy levels are definitely not up there any more." He used to row (in an eight man team) on the Clyde. "I used to love doing that. If I had kept it up, I would be doing it." His creative energy, however, is undimmed. "Definitely. But it takes quite a lot of energy to paint a picture. People may think you are just tickling the canvass. But it takes a lot of energy to paint a canvass, especially the way I paint.” He points to a very large canvass in his studio, looming nearby on a substantial easel. He smiles: “I hadn’t done that size for a long, long time. And I was saying [to his family] ‘I am actually breaking a sweat here, I am getting some real exercise here’. So it takes a lot of physical energy as well as creative energy. But that is still there - but it dips, it falls in the afternoon. But I am always raring to go the next day. I just love doing it."

Critics of his work may point to the similarity between many of his paintings, especially his rural scene - fans of his work relish the vibrant consistency. Of this, he refers to (but does not compare himself to) Picasso, who created painting after painting using the same imagery, or JMW Turner, who often painted several paintings on the same subject at once.

"Picasso was so spontaneous, he painted so many, but it was to push the envelope the whole time, even if it was the same theme," Morrison says. "Picasso painted an image of one of his lady friends, and he did about sixty of them. Now they sell for £10m each! But he did that a lot. I don’t do that - but there are some motifs that I keep returning to. I just love them, and I return to them in a different way. In a different season, or in a different light." He adds: "You just have to keep doing it and keep doing it. You are striving to get something which is the best painting you have ever done. I think that is what it is. And I have always painted like that, even when I wasn’t exhibiting. I have draws-full of stuff.” But he does not paint to order. “I’ve been known to stop working with a gallery if they ask for 20 more beach scenes - I just don’t work like that.”

Morrison is still reflecting on the impact, personally and professionally, of his Clydebank retrospective. His work has taken some different turns since then. There are also several works inspired by his visit to Venice in 2012, a visit in honour of his marriage’s 40th anniversary. Both events have sparked fresh ideas and perspectives.

“It felt a bit odd [to have the retrospective]. You’re supposed to be ‘deid’. It was great honour but at the same time I did feel very odd. A retrospective is meant to be your life’s work: but I carry on," he says.

“And I feel like my work has moved on hugely since then. People will see that. They might look at what I am doing now and think ‘that’s quite different’. Even in the last year it has changed a lot.”

The early morning light in Venice ‘did something for me colour-wise’ he says. It has now affected his work painting Scotland. The Venetian mornings and sunsets have at times supplanted his famous blues. “I never used to like doing sunsets, I always used to think they were a bit twee, even back to the old days,” he says. “Now I am getting really into them. People who have come to the studio have seen an incredible change.”

His Venetian inspiration has led to a new approach to a Scottish subject: he has started creating images of Iona Abbey and its windows, and other images with Presbyterian chapel windows. “These are so different for me, and some people have started talking about them - ‘what’s happened to the landscapes?’ - and they are quite atmospheric,” he says.

Christianity has always been a significant influence for Morrison. He preaches, in Lochgilphead and Skipness. He does not over-burden his paintings with sacred imagery but it is there - in doves, in certain symbolic colours - if you wish to see it.

He says: “It does still loom large. I have done a couple of [religious] pieces in the last few years. One of them is in the Mitchell Show, it’s called A Meeting with Christ.” It is a painting of an olive tree that grows in Gethsemane, so old that Christ may have walked past it, or prayed under it. “It’s a huge big painting. I love it,” he says.

Morrison, so known for his landscapes, says he may even paint a series of figurative works at one stage.

“It will just come. It’s like the windows, the interiors and Iona Abbey - they just kind of bubble under in your psyche. I don’t plan things - I don’t like working that way. I worked that way when I was at school - I was always getting into trouble for being in the art room and not in another lesson.”

And the future? He is frequently being asked to paint outside his more familiar portfolio. "I have had some really odd requests, I have been asked to paint pulpits, and some big curtains - but no, I don’t think I am fit enough. I do get the odd request, for big murals and so on, but..." he adds with a smile, "I am not Michelangelo."

•Jolomo at The Mitchell, 20 -26 November, 10.00am - 4.00 pm.