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Ewan McDougall
Ewan McDougall was born in Wellington. His family later moved to Oamaru where he was educated at Waitaki Boys High School and taught painting by North Otago regionalist artist Colin Wheeler. Ewan attended Otago University while also working in freezing works, surfing and drumming in seminal Dunedin Rock bands.
McDougall gained an Honours Degree in Political Studies in 1971 and worked at Otago University as a junior lecturer and tutor before leaving to travel overseas.
Over the ensuing decade the artist traveled extensively through Asia to Europe and the UK, then on to the USA and Mexico. He worked in iron-ore mining in the North Western Australian desert, in pubs in London, on oilrigs in the Arctic Circle and in restaurants in Colorado. In 1983 he returned to Perth, Western Australia, and met and married his wife the playwright Sarah McDougall. They then returned to New Zealand and in 1988 he began to paint again.
"Subsequently, he has developed a powerfully vibrant signature style. His witty, outrageous works are inhabited by a wealth of personal references to his often volatile life." [Mark Amery]
McDougall has had fifty-five solo exhibitions in some of New Zealand’s most prominent dealer galleries and innumerable group exhibitions as well as exhibiting internationally.
1994 - Exhibition in Cornwall, United Kingdom
2003 - Southern Heat, Dunedin Public Art Gallery
2004 - Sydney Art Show, Gallery 2021
2005 - The Rebecca Hossack Gallery, West End, London
2005 - Arte Immagini Gallery, Cremona City, Italy
2006 - Color Elefante Gallery, Valencia, Spain |
McDougall is a nine-time finalist in the Sir James Wallace Art Awards, a finalist in the Norsewear Art Awards and a prize-winner in the Mainland and Cleveland Awards.
He was a finalist in the Park Lane Art Awards in 2006 and in 2007 a finalist in the CoCA/Anthony Harper Art Awards in Christchurch. McDougall was also a finalist in the New Zealand Portrait Gallery/Adam Portraiture Awards in 2006 and 2008. His portraits were selected for the touring exhibitions on both occasions. He was also a finalist in the 2009 Waikato Society of the Arts Painting Awards.
Artist Statement:
"I am an Expressionist painter. I rarely plan a painting or do preparatory drawing. I commence the work with a quick wash of strong, primary colour and then begin to hurriedly paint figures-people, animals and hybrid creatures. I add crude marks for volcanoes, hills, sea, buildings, boats, clouds, sun and moon, working with vibrant impasto. The painting forms, and informs me as to what it is. The last stroke is always the title. Above all I prize spontaneity, colour and a good dose of irony. I love being a painter."
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