Elaine Woo MacGregor is a Scottish-born Chinese artist trained in the Glasgow School of Art. She graduated with a Bachelors Degree with honours, acquired a studio and began working as a full-time artist. MacGregor began to be noticed as a serious and thoughtful painter and her first solo exhibition was 'Portraits' in Glasgow. She has exhibited in galleries in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Cambridge and abroad. One of her works - 'Hotel No.4' - is in the public galleries collection, the Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport. MacGregor's work has been shown in the U.K, U.S.A, Australia and Thailand and critically recognised by virtue of the Dewar Arts Award, the James Torrance Memorial Award, the Hope Scott Trust Award and the Cross Trust Fund. In 2022, she was a finalist in the Jackson's Painting Prize, received Art Paisley Prize for outstanding work, and Velvet Easel Award from Paisley Art Institute.
Recent exhibitions include her solo exhibition Maman et Muses in Edinburgh, Scotland, Art on a Postcard in Fitzrovia Gallery, London, Art Miami, USA, Young Masters, London and The British Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, London, U.K. She has been selected for Platform 2023 - London Art Fair in 'Reframing the Muse', exhibition curated by Ruth Millington, showing with The Cynthia Corbett Gallery.
Artist statement:
Elaine Woo MacGregor's work encapsulates the world seen through the eyes of a cross cultural artist. She uses eclectic mark making and imagery to create atmospheric and theatrical scenes. Although her painted stories are often fictitious, elements of the picture are based on real people, places and things.
‘Sometimes I doubt my memory and wonder whether I will only be able to remember what never really happened’. Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Marina, 1999)
Elaine states: "There’s beauty in the process of memory lost and found, in the journey of rediscovery. I feel it brings clarity as well as traces of ambiguity in versions of the truth and half-truths. I paint stories and memories of people based on my personal experiences and experiences of others found in books, films and photography.
The paintings created this year have an intensity of colour, light and space. There’s a homage to 19th and 20thC French painters, feelings of Côte d'Azur, dance and theatre. Imbued with meanings and sometimes characters based on books about Peggy Guggenheim, Dora Maar, the love life of Marthe and Pierre Bonnard, and Audrey Hepburn in a film set. They are all my collective painterly visions and alternative reality where the viewer needs to peer through layers of paint, dapples of colour and a smudge of a mark.”
“Dreams have no titles. ”– Max Ernst