For over 15 years Lachlan Goudie has been drawing and painting in extraordinary industrial locations across the United Kingdom. From shipyards on the River Clyde, to blast furnaces in Wales and high-tech Satellite manufacturing laboratories in Portsmouth, he has found creative inspiration in the unlikeliest of studios.
Over the years these visits to engineering sites, factories, harboursides and mines have enabled him to produce hundreds of drawings, paintings and prints. When viewed together these images constitute an unusual archive; a picture history of modern British industry. A story of national achievement, pride and technological innovation.
Goudie’s experiences on the Clyde motivated him to seek out other locations that might contribute to a portrait of working Britain.
In many cases, Goudie’s work has borne witness to the end of an industrial legacy and the environmental impact this represents. His paintings document the last days of steel production at Port Talbot and Redcar, the changing skyline of Glasgow as ‘Titan’ cranes were demolished and replaced, whilst on the northeast coast at Hartlepool, he has charted the dismantling of immense offshore rigs, monumental structures that once defined the North Sea Oil boom. On other occasions he has been able to record the resilience of steel rolling at Dalzell (the last surviving component of the immense Ravenscraig steel works) and the advance of innovative new technologies, at the Airbus space and satellite manufacturing labs in Portsmouth and Stevenage.
His creative relationship with British industry helped inform the making of two BBC documentaries; ‘The Colours of the Clyde’ (2014), which explored the work of Stanley Spencer in the shipyards at Port Glasgow during WWII, and ‘Awesome Beauty – The Art of Industrial Britain’ (2017), which investigated the legacy of British artists who, like Goudie, were inspired by industry.
This exhibition will, for the first time, bring together the complete range of works produced during his fifteen-year painting pilgrimage through Industrial Britain. The display will also include drawings and paintings produced in the woods of the Scottish Borders and in Dorset.
Image: Lachlan Goudie - The Butterfly Tree
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