2021-22 Memories of Aberdeen Children’s Theatre

During lockdown, I mined my childhood and teenage memories for ideas for paintings. This included my time with the Longacre Players, an Aberdeen City Council-run youth theatre group based at Aberdeen Children’s Theatre. For Dwell, my 2021 solo exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh, I made a painting called Youth Theatre, depicting the Children’s Theatre and Aberdeen Arts Centre buildings, where I spent much of my formative youth. One of my former drama teachers at Longacre, Primmie McGillivray, subsequently commissioned me to make a smaller version of the painting as a 70th birthday present for her husband, Ali, who had also been a drama teacher at the youth theatre. I rather enjoyed revisiting these places and memories, and ended up making several more paintings, some of which you can see here.