John Wetten Brown: An artist and architect and true original

John lived a wonderfully diverse life. He was a happy man, proving to be very talented at everything he put his hand to: architecture, street theatre, performing, painting.

Born in Garthamlock, he went to St Gregory’s Secondary school, Cranhill, where he won a place at Strathclyde University to study architecture. He then hitch hiked around Europe, ending up sleeping on beaches in Greece.

After qualifying from Strathclyde as an architect he went on to specialise in the restoration of historic buildings and castles. In 1976 he took a job as architect for the restoration of Mains Castle, East Kilbride, for which he and the owner won two Saltire Awards as the best restoration completed in 1986. John took part in the filming of the BBC documentary The Making Of Mains, which was shown on mainstream TV.

However his love of performance and of the ludicrous took him into comedy and to an international career as a street entertainer. Together with Mike Rowan the pair decided to try Busking, as a comedy double-act in a recreation of the Egyptian Sand Dance, originally made famous by Wilson Keppel and Betty. They began in Buchanan Street. It worked extremely well. John was hilarious with his long lugubrious face. They performed round the UK, at the Edinburgh Festival, in Newcastle (where they got arrested), Southend-on-Sea and Liverpool, and even ventured to Amsterdam. Thus began a performance relationship that was to last the next 25 years.

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John created absurd, distorted characters including a nine foot tall woman, on hidden stilts, and a massive baby in an oversized pram.

During the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival the pair included a new routine, a soft shoe shuffle called “The Highlanders' Nightmare” involving 2 red beds, plus John as “Wee Malky”, a baby in a six foot pram, complete with huge nappy, nappy pin, matinee jacket and an old fashioned baby bonnet, with Mike as 'Big Rory' a giant Scotsman father pushing the pram.

John continued to work as an architect throughout, whilst putting in three hours a day at the festival. Glasgow Garden Festival attracted 4.3 million visitors over 152 days and was by far the most successful of all UK garden festivals, due to the tremendous work from imaginative artists, sculptors and inspired performers like John. The pair's success in Glasgow led to bookings all round Europe and even Australia.

Next John, the wonderful eccentric, decided on a change of character. "Gorgeous Morag", a giant, rascally woman wearing the first ever set of stilts with high heels, fish net stockings, a mini skirt and a penchant for leopard skin prints. The look was completed with a Cilla Black red beehive hairdo. As such he became Big Rory’s 'No Nonsense' girlfriend.

John had a glorious, outrageous and surreal sense of humour, and the popularity of the pair continued to grow with gigs in France, Italy, Holland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Northern Ireland and another trip to Australia as well as 12 trips to Japan. At his second invitation to perform at a series of events in Tokyo, in 1996, he met entertainment manager, Yoshino Saito. They met again in England and in 1999 they married, settling in Glasgow.

John’s architectural practice developed, in Glasgow’s west end, but his interest then turned more towards art and illustration. He succeeded commercially in his newly chosen field, with his work being exhibited widely.

Throughout his life John had been gleefully creative and artistic, screen printing and engineering deliciously strange and romantic large scale pop up scenarios. While he loved his successful architectural practice, he then decided to become a working artist as well. Soon he was earning nearly half of his income from his delightful, bold and squinty harbours and landscapes which almost invariably involved a dog or a Highland coo. He exhibited at galleries all over Scotland, his work becoming very popular.

Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2007 he was forced to give up his performance career, so focused on his bold, bright, colourful and humorous paintings. John's flat became the Kelvin Gallery, running art events twice-yearly. His last exhibition, which ran for three months at Irvine's Harbour Arts Centre ending in October was, as usual, a commercial success.

John’s art was vivid, dynamic and full of joy, just like him. Imagined vistas, contorted buildings, boats, wildlife and folklore abounded. His sense of the comic was wonderful, so his buildings danced, his Highland scenes bounced. He recently made a series of wall pictures with moving, pop-up parts, which were magical and full of fun. The naive boldness and the humour in his compositions always succeeded in cheering up the viewer, even on the dullest of days.

John was a talented, driven man, an original thinker determined to enjoy life and make a contribution. His indomitable spirit was exemplified by him joining a bowling club in his last year, when controlled and focussed physical activity was extremely compromised, and by him cycling there and back at great speed on his electric bike. For someone who had been a marathon runner, determination was still there.

A delightful, warm, generous man, John Wetten Brown's character was as large as his oversized theatrical creations. He will be greatly missed by everyone who was lucky enough to know him.

He is survived by his wife Yoshino Saito Brown and his sister Rita Fabling. The funeral is on January 17.