Douglas was born in Scotland 1952. He graduated from Hornsey Art School, later called Middlesex Polytechnic, London, in 1976 with a Bachelor of Art, Honors in Fine Art. He had the good fortune to receive a year’s French Scholarship to Les Beaux Arts in Aix en Provence in the same year, where he explored the new and refreshing Mediterranean light and landscape. After returning to England to complete a year’s postgraduate teaching degree from Leeds University in ’77, the first taste of the Mediterranean drew him back to Italy to develop his painting and drawing.

Travel and the sense of adventure led him to Australia in 1982, where he continued to paint to fund his travels and discover a new country. It was a different challenge to interpret the vastness of the landscape, its light and colour, all of which contrast with those of Europe. This is where he wanted to “hang his hat”. After starting married life in Fremantle in 1984 where his two daughters were born, he moved to the Yallingup area in 1991 and established a home and studio where he continues to work full time at his painting, and the challenges of interpreting this country’s contrasting landscape.

Since 1985 Douglas has travelled many times to the north to paint, including the Pilbara, Kimberley, Murchison as well as the Northern Territory. "The north will always have a fascination and be an endless source of inspiration. The timeless, vast and spiritual nature of its land has a power which has not been felt anywhere else".

As Douglas explains, “The experience gained in the formative years of painting and drawing from life has helped train my eye to observe. My work is often about light and how it falls on the landscape. The landscape forms the basis of my subject matter whether figuratively or exploring its abstract properties. The ancient qualities and size of Australian landscape also contribute to the challenge of interpreting it through painting.

My art is expressed through the language of painting my reaction to a visual experience. It may be landscape, the play of light over a subject, the movement of water, the colour of the rock, but I am compelled and inspired to put it down on paper or canvas and develop it further in the studio. The process and purpose of making art is my way of reasoning my position in the world whose beauty I attempt to reflect and capture”.

Qualifications

1972-76   B.A. (Hons) Fine Art - City & Guilds & Hornsey Art School, London
1976-77   1 Year French Scholarship, Ecole de Beaux Arts, Aix en Provence.
1977-78   1 Year Post-graduate Art Teacher's Certificate, Leeds University 1978-82   Travelled and painted in Italy, France and Austria, specialising in watercolours,  landscapes and portraits.

Recent Awards

2007              Winner of Vasse Primary School Art Exhibition
2006              Cossack Art Award, Pilbara Landscape Category
2006              Joint Winner Vasse Primary School Art Prize
2000              People's Choice, Cossack Art Prize/Finalist for Mandorla Art Prize

Representations

St John of God Hospital

Bendat Cancer Centre, Subiaco, Western Australia

Private collections held in Europe, USA, Israel, Australia.

Corporate Collections In Japan, USA, China, Australia

The Holmes a Court Collection        Monastery Gallery Collection

Rumanian Government  Alinta Gas

Dominion Gold Mines     New Norcia, WA

Evansand Tate Wines

Cape Bouvard

algoorlie College Art Department Collection

Hale School Collection

Pilbara Iron

Hamersley Iron

Millbrook Winery, Jarrahdale, WA

Illustrations for 3 poems in "Songs of The Possum" by Bill Mather-Brown

Represented by Yallingup Galleries