Jolomo opens 250th exhibition
One of Scotland's most popular and hard-working artists has celebrated the opening of his 250th solo exhibition.
Argyll-based John Lowrie Morrison (known as Jolomo) believes The Light of Glasgow and the Huts of Carbeth, which opened at the Glasgow Gallery in Bath Street on Saturday, is his 250th solo show, 'though it might be a couple more than that!'
John, who studied at Glasgow School of Art in the late 1960s and now lives in Tayvallich, Argyll, started exhibiting while he was still at school.
While John is best known for his paintings of landscapes on the west coast of Scotland, the new work in the Glasgow Gallery exhibition celebrates his relationship with Glasgow, where he grew up, and the surrounding countryside.
For the first time, he has painted a group of works which focus on the area around Carbeth in the Campsie Fells where his family spent holidays.
John said: 'My family had a hut at Carbeth and five or six other members of our family had huts – aunts, uncles, cousins. We went out every weekend, cycled out, or got the Bluebird bus from Buchanan Street bus station.
'The huts had no electricity or running water – we had a dry Elsanol chemical toilet and water came from a spring nearby. For lights, we used tilley lamps or oil lamps. It was all very old fashioned, but absolutely wonderful. From a ridge near my family's hut, you could see right down the valley. I was out drawing all the time.
'I did hundreds of drawings and pastel studies at the time, but could never get them into finished paintings. Now I have, so I have closure – after 50 years!'