Read below my end of year update covering my Bailiffgate Exhibition, move into my new studio at the Old Bath House, the Winter Exhibitions I am included in and finally a Studio Sale with a range of discounted paintings-perfect for last minute Christmas presents! It is also worth noting that I have just updated the gallery section of my website with all of my new work, you can visit it by clicking here. The past few weeks have been very busy to say the least. I have been thrilled with the reaction to my exhibition at the Bailiffgate Museum and have been so pleased to hear everyone’s responses t ..read more

Bailiffgate Exhibition: On The Horizon By Luke McTaggart, 29th October 2022 It is now just a few days to go until the opening of my new exhibition, ‘Horizons’, at the Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery, Alnwick. I have been very busy making preparations and after over a year of working towards it I am very pleased to see it all pulling together. I am billing this show as my first major solo exhibition, with around 40 works included this exhibition is double the size of my last show, ‘Amble Now’, and with many of the paintings being my largest yet it has been a huge undertaking to prepare for. I am ..read more

This essay is a collation of my current thinking about my work, processes and musings on the artists I am looking at at the moment. I am going to be busy painting over the next few weeks in the lead up to my solo exhibition, ‘Horizons’ at the Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery in Alnwick, hence this will likely be my last long-form piece of writing until before then. Surface and Depth: Painting and the Local By Luke McTaggart, 13th August 2022 As I have been preparing for my upcoming exhibition something that I have been thinking over is my working process and the relationship it bears to my subje ..read more

For the unacquainted, The Old School Gallery is a commercial gallery based in a former schoolhouse in the village of Alnmouth, Northumberland. The gallery runs a number of solo and group exhibitions across the year and maintains a Cafe and Pizza Van in its courtyard. The gallery also runs a number of camping huts located adjacent to the St. Oswald’s Way coastal path. The Shoreside Huts have been utilised for artist residencies, including one run in collaboration with the BALTIC Gateshead. Small Pleasures By Luke McTaggart Border Ballads is the current group show running this summer at the Old ..read more

As part of my final studies at Northumbria for my Degree in Fine Art, I recently produced a research paper on the Arts in Amble and the Surrounding Area. The final paper came in at 25 pages and a little over 5,500 words. In order to make that more digestable I have broken the contents down into a series of what are, hopefully, easy to read essays on the various aspects of the arts in the area that the paper touched on. The first of these essays, in a series titled ‘The Arts In The Area’, details an upcoming Sculpture Trail set to be constructed that will run from Low Hauxley, through Amble, kn ..read more

Ahead of the upcoming Alnmouth Arts Festival, taking place across the weekend of June 18-19th, I was interviewed as this years Poster Winner. You can see the interview via Youtube below ..read more

Over the past several weeks I have been bringing my Degree studies at Northumbria University to a close. As part of that I have recently prepared a research paper on the Arts in Amble and the Surrounding Area. I worked with lecturer Dr. Julie Crawshaw who has set up something known as the Ecology Project. The term ‘Ecology’ comes out of biology and is defined as being the following: The branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings. In the arts this term has come to be used in reference to what might have been traditionally ref ..read more

‘Coquet River School: An Introduction’ is an essay detailing a group of painters I am involved in. The writing below covers how the group came to be, our activities, shared interests and intentions. For several months now I have been taking part in a group consisting of Myself, Katherine Renton and Paul Henery. Our grouping began out of my mutual friendship with both of them, I suggested one day that the three of us meet up for a painting trip. Out of that initial meeting evolved what we have come to refer to as the Coquet River School. The notion of us being a group came out of the initial qu ..read more

Above: The Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery, Alnwick (Image Courtesy: Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery) I am very pleased to announce my next solo exhibition, ‘Horizons’, at the Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery in Alnwick this November. The exhibition will run from the 1st November 2022-29th January 2023* and will be composed of my latest landscapes including several new large-scale paintings. The title Horizons reflects the tension present in all of my works, between ground and sky, but also speaks to the fact that this show will represent my first exhibition after finishing my degree at Northumbri ..read more

Over the past few months I have been busy commuting back and forth to university in Newcastle and painting in my studio there. In the meantime I have been developing a seperate body of work at home, whilst also spending lots of time out in the landscape and in Amble. Read below an essay that attempts to sum up my current thinking about my painting and its direction. Above: ‘Amble Harbour, November’, Acrylic on canvas, 122x91cm (48×36 inches) Perhaps contrary to popular belief, I am not a pure ‘plein air’ painter. At the moment about 95% of my paintings are being done in the studio, spare a few ..read more