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Kevin Low was born in Forfar, Scotland, growing up in a series of isolated cottages and hamlets throughout the peculiar triangle marked out by the sandstone towns of Brechin, Montrose and Forfar. Something he says, that’s left, ‘a not unwelcome scar on my psyche.’ Before becoming a full time artist Kevin spent several years working as a theatre photographer - he studied photography at Edinburgh’s Napier University - working with many companies including Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, Tramway and the Traverse Theatre. He lives and works in Glasgow. *Follow me on instagram.
instagram.com/mrkevinlow. *A L Kennedy's introduction to the exhibition catalogue for 'Women & Men', by the novelist A L Kennedy. Kevin Low is one of those people with an over-abundance of talents. He's a fine, but largely unrecognised, author of complex prose filled with beauty and darkness. He takes startlingly good photographs: haunting close-ups of china figurines that make the domestic seem agonised or carnivorous and bizarre snapshots of arranged insanity. He was, for several years a photographer of stage performances: the lighting, the precisely chosen moments, the drama. In Women And Men it seems that Kevin has brought all these strands together in one resonant collection of painted images. (He paints, too - of course... ) Here we see figures caught in moments of intimacy and confusion. There is a domestic familiarity in some of the nudes, something early morning and blurred. In other frames the silliness, the passion, the obsession and failure of sex all riot about. Bodies retreat, turn, shift, present themselves, with and without balloons. Kevin's viewpoint is photographic, it picks the angles, the moments, it doesn't judge. But there is drama here, too. The fall of light is theatrical, cunning. Sometimes bodies have partners that are visible and simple, sometimes they seem to be making love to shadows, being preyed upon by shadows, even devoured. The brightness of skin seems to flare up out of liquid darkness. And behind each human drama lies a backdrop, a wild blending of night and the blood red one would find in Goya, in a closed eye facing light. It could be the colours of sex, love, anger, death - the joy of these pieces is that Kevin sets the scenes, conjures the cast and leaves us to decide. Once you've seen his women and his men you won't forget them, they are insidious as dreams, as fragile, tender and bleak. A.L.Kennedy |
Selected Exhibitions
2018 / Stallan-Brand, Glasgow - 'Honeymoon' - solo show 2018 / Wall Projects, Montrose - 'Avant Garden' - group show 2018/ Compass Gallery, Glasgow - Winter Exhibition' group show 2017/ Union Gallery, Edinburgh - 'Women & Men' - solo show 2016 / Union Gallery, Edinburgh - 'Reunion', group show. 2015 / Smithy Gallery, Blanefield – two person exhibition with Cathy Campbell 2015 / Mansfield Park Gallery, Glasgow – ‘Flight’s of Fancy’, group show 2015 / SSA Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh * awarded the Glasgow Art Club Prize 2014 / Compass Gallery, Glasgow – ‘Cabinet Pictures’, mixed show 2014 / Union Gallery, Edinburgh – ‘Child’s Play’, group show 2014 / Cameron Contemporary Gallery, Brighton – ‘Edition’, mixed show 2014 - 2010 / RSA Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh 2013 / Union Gallery, Edinburgh – ‘The Pleasures of Nature’, solo show 2013 / Smith Gallery, Blanefield – ‘Summer’, mixed show 2013- 2010 / RGI Annual Exhibition, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow 2013 / The Lumen Prize Exhibition / International Tour, Shanghi, Rega, London and Cardiff 2012 / Glasgow Print Studio – Featured Artist, solo show 2012 / The Smithy Gallery – ‘Six Degrees of Separation’, group show 2012 / Union Gallery, Edinburgh – ‘Worlds Apart’ two person show, with Stewart Bremner 2011 / Wall Projects, Montrose - mixed show 2011 / Rebecca Hossack, New York Gallery – mixed show 2011 / Rebecca Hossack, London Gallery – mixed show 2010 / Mansfield Park Gallery, Glasgow – joint exhibition with Alex Milson |
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