Dawnne McGeachy is a multi-award winning painter, as she describes herself, a 'sea painter.' Originally from Argyll, she now lives and works in Helensburgh. In 2013, she won one of Scotland's most important art prizes, the Jolomo Bank of Scotland Award for Landscape Painting. Her paintings are inspired by her father's career as a fisherman in Argyll and her personal relationship with the sea.
Artist Statement
I am a sea painter living and working in Scotland.
Both sides of my family are fisher people, one based in Campbeltown the other in Shetland. But the person who started my obsession with the sea was my dad; best friend; protector; and most importantly the one who never allowed me to give in.
Growing up on the peninsula of Kintyre (Campbeltown) I was obsessed by the scale of the ocean, its physicality, poetry and my father's voyages on it to catch fish. I loved his tales of the stars on a clear night and their use in navigation. However, the flip side of this was being awoken as a child by terrifying wind and rain, knowing that my dad was on the Firth of Clyde on a 55ft boat. As the child of a fisherman, I was aware of what the sea gave but also acutely aware of the cruelty of what it was capable of taking away.
The Sea and me.
I go to the coast as often as I can, mostly to build a bank of experiences and photographic reference material for the studio. I usually take short films so I can study the movement when I get back to the studio. I love watching the wind drag across the surface, pulling and agitating, making slants and troughs, noticing the channels get deeper and steeper as they collect the wind.