Charcoal on Paper | Between the System and the Sentiment | By Douglas McDougall

This solo show promises to be one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of Glaswegian artist Douglas McDougall's work for many years. Douglas produces a relatively small number of these large scale drawings each year, which may take months to reach completion.

Douglas uses traditional materials in a contemporary context, producing works with psychological impact. After sketching out his portraits with charcoal, the artist textures the paper with scalpel blades, sharp cut erasers and sandpaper.

McDougall recently completed a year long residency in Beijing, during which time he made three powerful portraits of Ai Weiwei, alluding to the darker elements of this leading artist's psyche than his admiring public are aware of.

McDougall works exclusively in graphite and charcoal on paper. His depiction of greying hair, battle scars and ageing skin is particularly striking, and serves as a metaphor for his subjects rejections of convention, or their position on the periphery of society. Through careful rendering of these raw portraits, the artist is unraveling his own childhood in one of the toughest cities in the UK.