Ian McCulloch has worked with printmaking, especially wood and linocut, for decades. He uses the direct and graphic quality of relief printing to heighten the expressiveness of his images.

This work is a reduction linocut print, meaning that rather than printing each layer from a difference block the artist made additional cuttings to the lino in between printings and printed both colours from the same block. This approach requires confident handling from the artist to conceive the image in stages, and gives a characteristic bold result.

Biography

Ian McCulloch is a post-war painter, printmaker, sculptor and ceramicist. He is recognised as one of the new Glasgow Boys.

The artist draws from modernist philosophies and plays with elements of cubism, dada, and surrealism. He uses myth and metamorphosis to create sublime and neurotic responses to modern life. His works are simultaneously celebratory and anxious, decorative and disgruntled.

McCulloch specialises in woodcut printmaking. He embraces developments in wood technology to embark on boldly large-scale pieces. The artist works with found-materials such as driftwood, working the appearing and disappearing surface of the image, and acknowledging the former history of the material.

Famously, McCulloch was winner of Glasgow International Concert Hall Mural Competition, 1989-90 and was commissioned by Glasgow City Council to produce the monumental mural Strathclyde, which was then censored and removed by the public body. 

McCulloch studied at Glasgow School of Art. He is a Professional Member of Society of Scottish Artists, and Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy.