Inner Landscapes: The Portraits of James MacDougall

Curated by Tara Marshall

For Stratford, Ontario based painter James MacDougall, it is the inner landscape of people rather than the Canadian landscape that holds his interest.  For almost forty years MacDougall has been painting skilful, sensitive and psychologically-revealing portraits that speak to the continued validity of people as subject.  MacDougall’s interest in people as subject is particularly fitting .  As a retired doctor he spent much of his life being concerned with the physical, inner-working of people and now as a painter he is concerned with showing his subjects’ personality and inner psychological state.  For MacDougall the painter/sitter relationship runs parallel to the doctor/patient relationship; the doctor shares a level of trust and intimacy with his patients which is similar to that shared between the artist and sitter.  Within the breadth and depth of MacDougall’s paintings multiple stories are revealed.