PAST EVENT: This was part of the EAF22 programme.

For the 2022 festival, the Fine Art Society presented Flare, an exhibition of paintings by abstract artist John McLean (1939—2019). Colour, form, and space are the core elements of John’s work. From the formal precision of his early work, to the free-flowing painterly expression he later developed, luminosity and rhythm run throughout. In 1981, he made his first visit as a guest artist to the Emma Lake workshop in Saskatchewan, Canada. Critics and artists there had an impact on John’s work, as did the landscape of the North American prairies.

Raised in Arbroath, John moved to London to study at the Courtauld Institute and spent the 1960s and 1970s at the Stockwell Depot of artists. His first solo exhibition was in 1975 at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, and he has since had more than forty solo exhibitions worldwide.