Douglas McDougall is a Scottish artist who brings beings into existence with little more than pulp and burnt wood. He works with charcoal on paper to create portraits of outsiders, those who exist without or despite the system. Some seem familiar, faces peeking out from the soft aperture of a balaclava as if this were a portal through which they perceived the world, and via which they too can be glimpsed and understood. Others are more cryptic, faces like golems conjured up from the earth, whose vascular skin and abraded features act like a coded membrane of the psyche beneath. In his dense mark-making and intense compositions, Douglas articulates complex inner worlds – places that may not obey reason or logic, but are experienced as very real and relevant all the same.
