BIG INTERVIEW: Aberdeenshire artist who dreamt of career in comic books finds fame on more traditional canvas
During a childhood spent in rural Aberdeenshire and raised by parents invested in the arts, Robbie Bushe dreamt of becoming a comic book illustrator.
Now almost four decades later, the established and award-winning artist is in the running for what could be his biggest accolade to date after being shortlisted for the UK’s most prestigious painting gong, the John Moore Painting Prize.
Born in Liverpool to Glaswegian parents in 1964, Mr Bushe moved to Aberdeen aged five, and then to Tornaveen near Torphins, where he was brought up and educated at Torphins Primary School and Robert Gordon’s College.
He graduated in Painting at Edinburgh College of Art in 1990, before becoming a lecturer at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen.
One of four siblings, the idea that Mr Bushe should forge a career in the arts was “never in doubt”, as he followed in not only his late parent’s footsteps but those of elder brother Chris too.
“Both my parents were in the arts,” he said.
“Mr dad Fred Bushe OBE was a sculptor and established the Scottish Sculpture Workshop at Lumsden in 1979.
“My mum was into theatre arts and taught speech and drama at Aberdeen College of Commerce. She won awards for her poetry.
“My interest was encouraged by both my parents. There was never a doubt for me that I would be doing something in the arts.”
As a teenager he was a member of Aberdeen’s Children’s Theatre and Longacre Players, and held his own show at the city’s art centre.
“As a child I always drew cartoons and as a teenager I became very interested in comic strips and graphic novels,” he added.
“But I was never very interested in writing my own stories or illustrating someone else’s.
“What I did like was the form of the storyboard. I like the idea that, in any frame, we are seeing the results of the previous set of frames and the anticipation of what will follow in the next.
“I wanted to be a comic book illustrator, then when I went to art school I got a more traditional paint instruction.
“As a child I would build, demolish and rebuild miniature road networks in the garden based on the routes observed in my 40-mile round trip to school.
“Now these childhood activities have re-emerged as a crucial research methodology for my work.
“My drawings follow the same thought processes as I did as a child creating elaborate environments to add buildings, people, narratives and the occasional 1970s TV science fiction reference.”
Mr Bushe held the positions of head of fine art at the University of Chichester, and lecturer at Kent Institute of Art and Design and Oxford Brookes University, before returning to Scotland in 2006.
He now lives in Oxgangs, Edinburgh, with his wife of 15 years Catharine Davison, also an artist and currently head of painting at Leith School of Art, and their Border terrier Stanley.
“Up until now, that was the biggest award I have ever won,” he said.
This month he’s been named as one of the five prize-winning artists short-listed for the first prize at the bi-annual John Moore’s Painting Prize at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool.
“This is the biggest and most prestigious painting prize in the UK and respected internationally,” Mr Bushe added.
“The exhibition was due to open in the summer and the call for entries was this time last year, but because of Covid it kept getting postponed and postponed.
“They created an online version of the award in early December and it’s all been done by social media with a zoom launch held on Thursday.
“There’s some friendly rivalry between the five of us. It’s a big jump from the runner-up prize to the winner with the big prize being a full exhibition of work for the collection.”
Mr Bushe’s entry, a large 158cm x 239cm oil and mixed media on canvas works, entitled The Neanderthal Futures Infirmary, is one of 67 works on display at the Liverpool gallery until June.
“It’s one of a series of four paintings and imagines an old Victorian hospital with a Neanderthal DNA extraction and cloning facility within a complex network of underground bunkers,” Mr Bushe added.
“It’s a look at who the Neanderthals were and how this was a society that existed alongside humans and why one died out.”
Mr Bushe first entered the John Moore’s prize in the mid-1990s when he drove his works to Coatbridge in a van to be considered. He was unsuccessful again online three years ago but this time, his entry stood out from more than 3,000 others.
“This one I was more confident with, as I thought it was a really good piece of work,” he added. “You just never know.”
Shortlisted artists each receive £2,500 while the first prize winner, to be announced on March 4, will receive not only the £25,000 first prize, but also the honour of joining an esteemed list of British painters who have won the prize over the past six decades. They include David Hockney in 1967, Mary Martin two years later, Lisa Milroy in 1989, Peter Doig in 1993, Keith Coventry in 2010 and Rose Wylie in 2014.
