The Other View

Issue No.1 Summer 2000

The Palette Knife Artist

By Tommy McKearney

Garry Beattie is an artist who discovered his passion for painting in prison. It was in the H-Blocks, while serving a lengthy sentence that he perfected the palette-knife style that he now favours. Watching Garry work on his canvas, it is sometimes difficult to realise that here is someone who had never taken art seriously until he was in his late twenties.

It was then, as he says himself, that he immersed himself in the world of fine art. While continuing to paint, he read anything he could obtain on his chosen subject. In the course of a few years he had acquired "O" and "A" level qualifications and was on his way to completing an open university course when he was released. Pressures of making a living on the outside prevented him completing his course but fortunately did not stop Garry continuing to produce some very fine pictures.

Although practicing his own style, Garry makes no secret of the influence exerted on his work by some of the masters of the past. Among his favourites are Monet and the impressionists and the legendary Picasso. Not surprisingly he is also an admirer of the Irish painter Jack B. Yeates.

In many ways it is when Garry uses his extensive local knowledge of the geography and customs of his native County Armagh that we see his work at its best. Some of his best-observed pieces deal with the music of local pipers and orange bands. In one humourous, cartoon-like picture he paints an Orange "big-wig" wearing what for him is a most unfortunate colour clash as his green tie, white shirt and orange collarette unintentionally make up a neat Irish tricolour.

Garry nevertheless is determined to move away from some consider to be his strongest field. He has tired of purely representational art and is anxious to concentrate on modern or what the layman calls abstract art. As with many artists he feels that he needs a degree of inspiration and does not work routinely to order. He says that as he comes upon a theme he likes to develop it and work on it until he has exhausted whatever potential he can find in that area.

Few painters earn much money and in this respect, Garry Beattie is no exception. He is restricted therefore by that old black dog - finance. At the moment his great ambition is to build a new studio and to stage an exhibition of his work. If anyone reading this article can offer any help, please contact the editors and let us know what you can do.

In the meantime, Garry continues to develop his skills and to paint the people and scenery of his native area.

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