Painter, writer and broadcaster - son of Alexander Goudie
Lachlan Goudie is a renowned Scottish artist and broadcaster, whose artwork covers portraiture, still life and landscapes. He is equally fascinated by our industrial landscape and recently documented the construction of the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers. He was artist in residence at the shipyards of Govan and Rosyth and produced a body of work inspired by the greatest engineering project undertaken in Britain for 50 years.
‘Shipyard’ opened on Friday, October 13 2018 at the Scottish Maritime Museum and featured around 70 artworks by Lachlan Goudie documenting construction of the next generation of Britain’s naval vessels.
Goudie spent seven years documenting the building of the Type 45 destroyers on the Govan slipways at BAE Systems shipyard right up to the sixth and last of these great ships to be built and have a traditional launch there, HMS Duncan. Drawing on hundreds of images Goudie created at Scotstoun, Govan and Rosyth over a seven year study between 2009 and 2016, the artworks range up to 3m x 2m in size and across a wide range of mediums. These include oil and gouache paintings, pen and ink drawings, sketches, sculptures, wood cuts and large charcoal portraits.
Lachlan said: “Shipyards are awe-inspiring places. The sublime sense of scale and energy, the furious and relentless pace of component panels being assembled into towering monuments of steel. There is noise, there is chaos and fire, there’s a visceral sense that you’re part of a vast, industrial organism that will spit you out of the way, unless you watch your step. As an artist, you hardly want to blink for fear that you’ll miss a bizarre, unworldly juxtaposition of shapes, colours, pipes and scaffolding. Yet, it was also important to me to capture the shipyard workers. Walking in I might have expected machismo and aggression but instead I found welders, gaffers, sparks and chippies intense and sensitive people intrigued by what I was creating.
The works were produced amidst the sparks and the steel of a working yard and it seems appropriate to me that they should be displayed at the Scottish Maritime Museum, surrounded by the engineering artefacts, the machines, templates, the models and ship’s hulls that constitute our national, maritime legacy.”
David Mann, director of the Scottish Maritime Museum, added: “We are thrilled to premiere Lachlan Goudie’s spectacular study of the scope, scale and frenetic energy of the modern shipyard, the labour and skill of the thousands of workers employed there and the magnitude of their monuments to industry. Lachlan is an immensely talented artist and his fascinating exhibition will help shine a light on Scotland’s wonderful maritime heritage.”
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2018 ‘Shipyard’, Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine, Scotland
2017 Lachlan Goudie, Rozelle House, Ayr
2011 A True Wilderness Heart, The Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York
2010 Of the Moment, Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow
2009 Dreaming Places, The Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York
2008 New paintings from the South of France, Thompson’s Gallery
2006 Showreel, The Cremer Street Gallery, London
2001 A London Eye, Gallery Q2, London
1999 From Cambridge to Rajasthan, Christ's College
Selected Mixed Exhibitions
2017 Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition
2016 Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition
2015 New Paintings by Lachlan Goudie and Tim Benson, Mall Galleries, London
2015 Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition
2014 These Precious Things, The Elizabeth Harris Galley, New York
2014 Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition
2013 The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, Annual exhibition
2013 The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The Mall Galleries London
2012 The Royal Society of Painters in Oil Colour, Elected an Associate member
2012 Still Life and the Opera, Glyndebourne
2012 Lands of Streams and Timber, Roger Billcliffe Gallery
2011 Paintings of Andalucia, Bodegas Gonzalez Byass, Jerez
2011 Sketch drawing prize, The Rabley Drawing Centre, Marlborough
2011 The River Runs through it, Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow
2009 The Royal Institute of Oil Painters, The Mall Galleries, London
2009 The Discerning Eye, The Mall Galleries, London
2007 The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The Mall Galleries, London
2006 Showreel, The Cremer Street Gallery, London
2005 New Works, Thompsons Gallery - Marylebone, London
2004 The Discerning Eye, The Mall Galleries, London
2004 B.A. Degree Show, Camberwell College of Arts, London
2003 New Works, Thompsons Gallery, Marylebone, London
