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Phil McLoughlin
Nov 4, 20245 min read
Art and the Artist: the name is not the thing
(A version of this essay was published online by the Society of Scottish Artists in 2024) Almost 50 years ago I made the piece titled...
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Phil McLoughlin
Mar 12, 20215 min read
Durer's message: Sadder but wiser
The melancholic temperament has an enduring association with creative people. Although not an essential part of the creative process it...
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Phil McLoughlin
Sep 1, 20205 min read
Keys to the sublime
Over 20 years ago the psychiatrist, Howard Cutler, published "the Art of Happiness”, based on conversations with the Dalai Lama. Their...
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Phil McLoughlin
Jun 22, 20204 min read
Expert by experience
Anyone who suggests that you should ‘get real’ is showing their age. What was ‘cool’ in the late 20th century now has a definite ‘retro’...
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Phil McLoughlin
Jun 2, 20204 min read
Meeting the Wizard Of Oz
Fifty years ago, under the influence of British pop art and the American ‘hard edge’, I felt that painting still had the power to change...
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Phil McLoughlin
May 16, 20203 min read
The art of the labouring classes
I have run almost every day for the past sixty years. I say almost for my career has been peppered with injuries, mostly from overuse. I...
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Phil McLoughlin
May 5, 20204 min read
Who you gonna believe..?
Some years ago the Spectator art critic, Andrew Lambirth, writing about David Hockney's Royal Academy show, noted that: “a great many...
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Phil McLoughlin
May 4, 20202 min read
Elvis the Piss-Artist
We were walking back to the gallery when Elvis headed off to take a pee on the edge of Richard Long’s Macduff circle. It seemed perfectly...
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Phil McLoughlin
May 3, 20203 min read
The meanings of things
A favourite theme of Alan Watts was how 'civilization' had led us to confuse symbol with reality. Our fascination with naming, describing...
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Phil McLoughlin
May 2, 20204 min read
The wonder of waiting.
My father was a furnace man and I spent my last two years at school working every holiday alongside him at the iron foundry – Easter,...
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