Douglas McDougall has an authentic and often solemn narrative buried within his well executed charcoal drawings. A small group of skilled artists share his medium of large scale charcoal works, including Jason Brooks and Robert Longo. However, McDougall has his own particular approach, with the piece evolving organically over many months of toil, rather then being driven by a single spectacular image. McDougall’s imagery is not realistic though the detail is such that anyone may confuse his creations with hyper realism.

The deceptively congenial manner in which this harsh metaphor is presented is especially fascinating; outwardly the landscape appears almost pastoral, whose only obvious peculiarity is the mysterious sink hole. As the viewer tunes into the picture as a whole, the image comes into focus, with each blade of grass becoming a body hair, and each undulation of the field becomes a blood vessel.

Rufus observes that McDougall spends much of his time alone, and is difficult to fathom. He has a formidable system of defenses in place, which few people can penetrate, and speculates that McDougall actually needs to communicate through his works, what he cannot communicate in words. Each picture is a system of internal thought processes waiting for interpretation.

The work that shares the title of the exhibition ‘Between the System and the Sentiment’ features Theo, a man and muse McDougall periodically returned to over ten years. He is an outsider, has schizophrenia, and appears to have been left to the wind and rain, worn smooth like a stone. McDougall’s work often incorporates aspects of humanity within nature, and nature within humanity. In this work we see Theo’s beard curling seamlessly into a wave in a solemn and beautiful representation of this parallel.

‘Between the System and the Sentiment’  2015  110 x 160 cm  Charcoal and Archival Print

McDougall’s two most recent works ‘How the West is Won’ and ‘Syria’ take the structural remnants from 9/11 ground zero and re-position them in the scenic historic Scottish battlefields of Rannoch Moor and Glencoe. These works are a recent journey away from the artist’s traditional focus on portraiture, whilst retaining his distinctive dark surreal style.

In ‘How the West Is Won’ the structural remnants of a collapsed building from Ground Zero appear to be returning to nature. The soft organic form appears as though years of erosion have softened the subject’s inherent historical violence.

‘Syria ‘  2016 80 x 140 cm  Charcoal on Paper

McDougall’s experiences of life have created his dialogue. Rufus observes that from all of his conversations with the artist, McDougall cannot say that he actually enjoys creating the works. The artist’s reasons for producing these images are unclear, and that is perhaps his greatest mystery.