John Wetten Brown - Artist

John Wetten Brown popped into the gallery recently to deliver some new work for the summer exhibition.
John has had a life long interest in drawing and painting and has followed his love of Scottish landscape and architecture seeing them with informed and fresh eyes. Here is a broad spectrum of subjects, from wild mountain scenery to quaint fishing harbours, and, from the the title of a recent solo exhibition, 'From Crow Steps to Highland Coos'.

The style of the paintings is bright and perspectively challenged. This may be a reaction against drawing straight lines on a drawing board, judge for yourself. This image is typical of the artist's highly personal style of painting scenes of his native land.

Summer Exhibition and Alastair Laing Artist

We're just about gearing up for the new exhibition, Sentimenti di Estate (opening on the 11th July) and have the opportunity to give you a wee sneaky peak at one of our favourite artists, Alastair Laing's paintings.
Alastair was born in Edinburgh in 1944. He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1962 – 66, thereafter at Moray House College of Education and the University of Edinburgh.
After teaching in primary and secondary schools and thirty years in teacher education, latterly in the Faculty of Education at the University of Glasgow, he is spending more time at the easel, working mainly in mixed media.

Drawing heavily on his early work as a calligrapher and graphic designer, and inspired by the Vienna Secession and Paul Klee, the paintings are external manifestations of a substantial part of his life and environment which he carries around inside him.

More preview work will be posted on the blog before the exhibition opens - so keep checking the blog for the latest.

Pieces in the gallery can always be seen on the website too www.gallerialuti.co.uk

Peter Luti - 'The BIG One'

I am very excited about the imminent arrival of the biggest Peter Luti painting yet. It is currently up North for the Nairn Festival, but is due to come to us fairly soon.
The stunning use of colour, form and texture create a dramatic impact that is truly a spectacle to behold. Traditionally dad's paintings have peaked at 20" x 20", so this whopper's stats at 30 x 30 are indeed something a bit different. We have already had a lot of interest in this piece, even though it's yet to make it's premier in the gallery and as a result dad has promised to tackle some more paintings of larger dimensions.

As of yet, the painting has either still to be named, or dad has still to tell me what it's title is, but as soon as possible I'll have all the details on the website http://www.gallerialuti.co.uk/.

Trust me - this one's a corker!

Dugald MacInnes - Slate Mosaicist

Dugald MacInnes' uniquely intreguing work, is an amalgamation of his three passions in life - fine art, geology and archaeology.
Dugald's work combines his three passions into a final work. Having studied for degrees in Fine art (Mural Design - Glasgow School of Art), geology and archaeology, it was inevitable that his finished pieces would have a distinctly earthy, bold and linear structure, with a deep empathy for Scottish history. His use of Scottish Slate, and Venetian gold leaf Smalti provides a stunning and deeply dramatic impact

Dugald States : My work, I hope, communicates a personal, emotional response to the Scottish landscape, its geology and prehistory. Often the titles I give the works employ academic terminology in an effort to draw a deeper contextual response from the viewer. The mosaics however are never purely didactic or decorative; they are essentially deeply felt, expressive artworks.

More information on Duglad can be found on his website http://www.dugladmacinnes.com/ and his pieces in the gallery at http://www.gallerialuti.co.uk/

Dugald MacInnes is a regular exhibitor with Galleria Luti, and we almost always have his work.

Nikki Monaghan - Artist

Nikki Monaghan is a relatively new-comer to Galleria Luti. Her quirky and individual style of painting is inspired by Scottish landscape scenery and coastal areas.


The simple forms and use of texture illustrate an image of a memory of a particular place rather than a representation creating, naïve and often humerous landscapes. Images are simplified and shapes and colors develop into pattern. Nikki's use of mixed media includes oil pastels, gouache, acrylics and pencil often layered on top of each other and scratched beneath the surface to uncover hidden color.

More details about Nikki and her work are on the website www.gallerialuti.co.uk

Nikki's pieces are in exhibition in the gallery until 8th July.

Gill Harrison - Glass Artist

We are very lucky to have some extremely talented artists living locally in Callander.

This beauty is the masterpiece creation of Gill Harrison.

Gill has always loved creating things and has been working as a contemporary glass artist now for about 2 years. Beginning with lampwork glass beads, she shortly afterwards discovered the joys of fusing glass and now enjoys both, often incorporating lampworked items into fused projects. There are photos of Gill's studio and a bit more about her on the website at Hollingdaledesigns.com .

I'm hoping to get photos of all of Gill's work that is in the gallery on the website sometime this week.

http://www.gallerialuti.co.uk/

Dronma - Artist

I'm delighted that we are showing one of my favourite contemporary colourists for the first time in the gallery. What a joy!

In recent years Dronma has built up an impressive reputation in Scotland as a modern colourist depicting the character of Scotland's mountains and shores in a bold and vibrant fashion. She has been a Tibetan Buddhist since 1976, and is a fantasitc and spiritual person.

Dronma's fluid and energetic painting style conveys the powerful force behind the Scottish coastline, and in particular the dramatic scenery of the west coast and Western Isles.

Prima Estate Exhibition

Prima Estate (Early Summer), our third summer exhibition, is promising to be one of the most vibrant and exciting exhibitions that we've hosted to date. The exhibition celebrates bold contemporary Scottish art from over 30 artists. There is a strong emphasis on colour throughout the exhibition, not only found in the original paintings, but also conveyed through a variety of ceramic works, and by many of the designer jewellers who are exhibiting. With dynamic denotation on colour and form the exhibiting artists including Peter Luti.

Also showing in the exhibition are dynamic artists including Dronma, Sharon Mitchell, Douglas Matheson, Gavin McEvinney, Charlotte Brayley, Fiona MacLeod, Nikki Monaghan and others, with unique slate mosaics from Dugald MacInnes, slate clocks from Caroline Stewart, sculpture by Walter Awlson and designer hand-crafted jewellery from Nicola Morrison, Sarah Perry, Anne Finlay and many others.

Nicola Morrison and Marsha's green jewellery

We're absolutely delighted to have Nicola Morrison's fabulous jewellery in exhibition again.Nicola Morrison's designs are based on research into the work of Japanese textile artists and the textile company Nuno Corporation.

Through these inspirations she has produced jewellery which consists of subtly textured components made from precious metals.

I've gone all green with my jewellery.....

... which is proving to be the colour of choice at the moment. Hurrah! Stick pin brooches are particularly popular just now - so I'll be making up lots more soon.

In gallery-unrelated news, the weekend saw a trip through to Glasgow to compete in the West Regional Finals of the Young Farmer Talent Spot competition.We (Callander & District Young Farmers Club) were absolutely delighted with our 6th place position and even more so to win 'Best Reserve Act' for the Stomp. Well done everyone!

It feels so much better coming home with a bit of silver! Yaaay.

Alexander MacKay - Glass Dishes

Glass artist Alexander MacKay popped in to the gallery this morning with some of his work.

These Square glass dishes are now on display in the gallery, and are absolutely beautiful.

There's something fascinating about handmade glass pieces. I'm especially fond of the black piece in the center here. The strikingly pleasing geometric design is enticing and the almost sky-like pattern in the middle intriguing.. at first look it is mearly black and white, but on closer inspection is a deep burgandy colour - it reminds me of a full bodied red wine. Mmmmm, red wine.

Anyway... I went to the Callander Amateur Operatic Society (CAOS) production of Fiddler on the Roof last night. It was a great show... with stand out performances by Peter MacDonald, Angela Dickinson, Emma Milligan and Vivien Pope in the roles of Tevye, Golde, Hodel and Yente respectively. Brought me right back to the days when I was in CAOS and we performed Fiddler. Can it really be 15 years ago? How fast time flies!