An Exhibition of Portraiture | 12th-26th January 2024
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In this exhibition Rothnie has focused on portraiture. She feels lucky enough to have been brought up in a multicultural household and finds much joy and beauty in the faces she has been surrounded by. By sketching and painting them she connects to the subjects and spending time with their expressions evokes her own emotions. She is inspired by street art and the work of artists such as Jean Michel Basquiat and the colours and textures of Post-Impressionist artist Henri Matisse as well as traditional patterns found in various traditional indigenous textiles and art from Africa, Australia and Asia.
Art for Rothnie is a type of personal therapy and she revels in using mixed media as the tactile experience of applying the materials and the resultant textures can reveal and release all manner of emotions and tensions. At times the pattern making becomes rhythmical and meditative, at others frantic and energy filled. Often not using brushes but involving physical touch the works themselves often invite the viewer to look deeper beyond a surface representation of a person to enjoy the hidden dance and dialogue that the image presents as these people are transposed through the marriage of patterns and textures.
Rothnie has kindly provided us with a game to test your observation skills as you browse the exhibition, suitable for kids and adults alike! Pick one up in the gallery, or download ‘Find the Detail’ here and play along.
Biography
Having graduated in 1996 from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, for a long time my art took a back seat to bringing up my family. After a tumultuous period in my life and diagnosis with a chronic pain condition, I had to radically change my life in order to reclaim my health and happiness. Beginning to unapologetically create art in my own way, was part of this re-emergence and reclamation of self.
I currently stay in the South side of Glasgow and teach Art to young people who struggle to access the curriculum in a mainstream environment within special units at Govan High School. I love connecting with people and feel my life has imbued me with rich visual memories which emerge on my canvases, this often feels like a way of journaling. From attending school in Lagos, Nigeria to living in a house where my mother was a linguist and father, an international sports organiser, my home was always filled with people from across the globe. This fed into the broad base of cultural influences, wild stories and colourful characters in my life. I have a broad spectrum of artistic influences, ranging from the layers and colours of graffiti and street art, to the patterns and symbols of traditional art of indigenous peoples across the world. The latter causing me to consider my own symbolic images. I have always enjoyed the art of Henri Matisse, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Gustav Klimt, full of colour, texture and patterns.
Read more about Rothnie and her work here:
https://www.s-s-a.org/our-members/rothnie_artist/profile/
https://www.instagram.com/rothnie_artist/
https://www.facebook.com/RothnieArtist/