‘Every picture tells a story’ is an often-quoted phrase, but in today’s contemporary art scene this saying is nowhere more literally relevant than in figurative narrative painting. This exhibition is filled with this unique type of storytelling. Figurative paintings demand our attention. They challenge us. They are not a picturesque landscape or comforting still life. They stare back at us, they lecture us, they dance with us.

Glasgow has a long tradition of figurative painting, starting with the Glasgow Boys dating from the mid-19th century and had a resurgence in the 1980s with The New Glasgow Boys. This exhibition is a contemporary continuation of this tradition comprised of the work of five diverse and widely exhibited artists based in Glasgow who came together as a supportive group around the love of telling a good story.

Jane Gardiner uses complex patterns of wallpaper as well as images from the natural world to provide mysterious but playful insights from a female perspective. Frank McNab’s paintings can be read almost like a literary work of fact or fiction containing clues to the answers to philosophical questions. Cherylene Dyer explores vulnerability through her ambiguous but sympathetic portrayal of singers, actors and dancers. Nichol Wheatley’s atmospheric landscapes with solitary figures, like sentinels, speak of loneliness or longing. Todd Garner paintings take an inspirational nod in the direction of fellow American painter Edward Hopper invoking the glamour and wit of film noir.

Glasgow has a long tradition of figurative painting… and dancing. The artists in this exhibition invite you to immerse yourselves in these pictures that are telling stories, and dance.

Cherylene Dyer

Frank McNab

Todd Garner

Jane Gardiner

Nichol Wheatley