Margaret L. Smyth

Bohun Gallery is delighted to present the new collection of work by Scottish artist Margaret L. Smyth in her first solo show in England. The exhibition provides a unique opportunity, not only for collectors of Smyth’s enigmatic paintings, but also for keen followers of Contemporary Scottish Art. The artist’s highly detailed and intricate storytelling methods are a fine example of the traditional techniques still being taught in the Scottish Institutions and her complex practises continue to captivate new audiences since her graduation from the Edinburgh College of Art in the early 1980s.

Margaret L. Smyth’s imagery is led by the enjoyment of combining various disparate elements including toy theatres, Renaissance portraiture, natural history and seascapes, often playing with different scales in the same image. Her cast of theatrical characters appear and reappear in different combinations, sizes and scenarios and the viewer begins to see a story emerging. The new paintings created for Bohun Gallery’s show explore a cast of characters who have become itinerant performers making their way to Venice for the carnival. Some of them travel in hot air balloons and others sail across the lagoon from the Lido and, in one case, become stranded.