Mairi Stewart was born in Falkirk, Scotland in 1955. She studied Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art where her tutors included Robert Callender, Elizabeth Blackadder and Victoria Crowe. She graduated in 1977 and then spent a year at Moray House College of Education gaining a teaching certificate. In 1978 Mairi started teaching Art and Design in schools around Edinburgh. She went on to have a successful career teaching and tutoring Art and Design.
Mairi Stewart continued to paint and exhibit paintings throughout her teaching career. Then in 2009 Mairi made the decision to leave teaching in order to concentrate more fully on her career as a full time professional artist. She is now a professional artist, working from her Edinburgh studio. In 2010 she became an artist member of Paisley Art Institute.
Mairi Stewart finds inspiration for her paintings from her surroundings and by travel. She collects notes and records details of everyday life in her sketchbook looking for combinations of evocative patterns and shapes. Mairi works mostly from memory and favours an intuitive approach in her paintings as opposed to analytical, creating compositions which reflect her interest in colour and pattern. She is known for her bold use of colour palette in her contemporary arrangements where she combines personal narratives with memories. Mairi's colourful Still Life paintings explore the relationship that selected objects have with memory. Her work is not a literal portrayal and the essence of her paintings is one of simplicity. By combining disparate objects and recollections, new sensations are generated within Stewart's paintings. A flattened perspective and a bold use of colour help to heighten the contemporary vision of her art works.
Speaking about her work Mairi Stewart says: 'My still life paintings are a personal response to my surroundings and to the familiar objects, colours and patterns which have become embedded in my memory, often because of their more symbolic meaning or of a past significance that they have. Personal connections and meanings are important to me and I prefer to use objects which suggest particular feelings and emotions, as they help me to create new sensations in my paintings. I often fuse indoor and outdoor worlds and try to combine elements from a variety of different sources, with the aim of creating a narrative.'
Mairi Stewart works mainly using Acrylic paints using canvas or board. This allows Mairi to glaze layers of colour on to the surface of each painting so that it creates a much more intense colour palette, giving the art work a more contemporary feel to it. She reworks her compositions simplifying and distorting shapes and flattening the perspective until the original memory of the subject is captured and the image begins to take shape.
In addition to Red Rag Modern Art Gallery in Bath Mairi Stewart has exhibited with other leading British Art Galleries. Each painting at Red Rag is sourced from the Mairi Stewart artist studio and like all Red Rag Scottish art and Contemporary art it can be shipped worldwide.
Mairi Stewart at Red Rag Gallery
