While the coronavirus pandemic has turned lives upside down for many, causing some to stop what they were doing, slow down or totally reassess the way ahead, for Hugh Loney nothing has changed. The daily routine is just the same as it ever was.
It is the ritual all “outsider” artists confront on a daily basis – they get on with it and do what they have to do, no matter what the rest of the world is up to.
When interviewed for The Herald in 2000, he recalled the very first time he picked up a brush and added a splash of colour to something. That was when, as a four-year-old growing up in Glasgow’s Calton area, he spontaneously decided to brighten up a black toy train he had received at Christmas.
“That was the start and I haven’t stopped since,” he said.
Now, the only thing different is that there’s considerably less floor space available in his Ayrshire home which also doubles as his studio.
Objects continually fascinate and challenge him. In his hands, and when the available light is right, a discarded umbrella becomes a thing of great beauty; the remnants of an old plastic chair washed up on the beach when married to sea-tumbled tree branches is turned into something that would not look out of place at the Burning Man event in Nevada.
When paint brush or pen and ink determine the theme, he might turn his attention to black birds – particularly crows, studying them in detail until he has worked that out of his system and discovered something else intriguing to fire his imagination.There is a collection of almost psychedelic self-portraits in silhouette.
Loney is driven – there is no other way to describe the way he approaches his art. Nothing is created because of the demands of “the market” or any gallery owner pushing him to have 20 big canvasses finished in time for the next opening.
Some of the most exciting work he has produced in recent years has been inspired by walks along the local seashore. “On Irvine beach there are little streams that trickle out on to the shore and I noticed one had traces of coal dust which made interesting patterns where it merged with the sand,” he said.
“I took photographs and played around them, zooming in and out when they were on my laptop. When I got close in I grabbed a second shot of that then enlarged it by projecting the image up onto paper, took a tracing then filled the detail in.
“It’s amazing what you can find if you keep your eyes wide open,” he continued.
“The beach has thrown up so much for me. I did sculptures there for around 10 years from found objects that had just washed up and presented themselves.”
He enjoys more fun than a schoolboy at the zoo when he is out and about with his camera.
Intrigued by the surface texture of cantaloupe melons on display in a local shop, he took close-ups, projected them onto paper, took a tracing and produced another set of big, bold, black-and-white images.
Angels, too, have featured over the years and are a subject revisited in a recent burst of activity. “I found that if you hold winged sycamore ‘helicopter’ seeds up to the light, you can see the veins inside and they look just like insect wings,” he said. “When photographed and projected onto a surface, they can look like angel wings if you place a human figure in the middle.
“We went out and projected some of those onto buildings, including Glasgow Cathedral and The Magnum Centre in Irvine, before it was demolished.”
Gifted with a free-spirited approach, he’s not afraid to indulge in a spot of “what if?” So, the unconventional will often make and appearance, such as cone-shaped paper hats over five feet long. Recently, he has also been experimenting with bleach – and bitumen. His preoccupation with conical hats came from studying the work of Goya.
Loney said: “I noticed some peasants in a painting that were wearing them and wondered about that, then I discovered they were first invented by a monk, John Duns Scotus in the 13th century who believed that the pointed shape of the hat would, in some way, act as a conductor or funnel for gathering knowledge from a higher force in the heavens above, which would flow from the pointed tip into the brain of the wearer.
“He was Scottish, from Duns, and apparently the dunce’s cap, as it later became known, derived from that, and those given one to wear were not being singled out to be made a fool of, but to be given a chance to improve their knowledge and intelligence.
“I made mine 5ft 6in tall so they have a fair reach high above your head. They are covered in newspaper cuttings.”
Loney continues to be admired and collected by a group of art lovers who are fascinated by all that he produces. They are regular visitors to his home, keen to keep up with output.
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