Artist James Foot brings global scenes to Gibraltar in latest exhibition

Artist James Foot is back on the Rock with his latest watercolour exhibition that features not only Gibraltar but faraway places like Egypt and European destinations like Venice.

Currently on at the John MacIntosh Hall, Mr Foot reflected on a 40-year career devoted entirely to watercolour, a medium he has worked in exclusively, and how much he loves the life he has built for himself.

“All I’ve done is watercolours,” he said. “I get up every day and I paint pictures… and then I go gardening and drink a bottle of wine. What’s not to love?”

He works with just eight colours and one kind of brush, which is replaced after every eight to ten paintings.

“If I have no problems with my materials, then I can really concentrate on the painting. I don’t have to think about it. Whereas if I use different paper, the paint would soak into it a different way,” he said.

“So, I’m very stuck in my ways.”

The exhibition comes after a long absence from the Rock, driven largely by the artist’s permanent move from the UK to Greece after Brexit.

Mr Foot pointed out works from Venice, Greece, Spain, Egypt and Gibraltar, alongside the familiar scenes of Spain and Morocco that local audiences may recognise from earlier exhibitions.

The Egyptian works include some being exhibited for the first time. There are garden paintings and botanicals at one end of the gallery and some earlier Gibraltar paintings from the 1990s, rediscovered when he was clearing out a small studio in Greece

“I thought it’d be interesting to bring my travels to show what else I paint, because I’ve never shown the other things here,” he said.

Seeing the works properly framed and hung in a light-filled space remains exciting, even after four decades.

“You must imagine that I never see them behind glass in the studio. When you get to a big, clean, airy space, and I put them behind glass, they all come to life. It’s exciting for me, and it makes me learn what works well,” he said.

He noted that he once exhibited in Gibraltar regularly but now shows frequently in Greece, where watercolours are considered unusual and attract significant attention in the national press.
A “really, really good gallery in Athens” has also helped cement his presence there.

Brexit has had a very practical impact on his career too. Since Brexit, he chose to make Greece his permanent home. He sold his house in London and he hasn’t been to England since 2017. Having lost his parents and brother, the need to return is not there anymore.

One of the biggest consequences of Brexit and his permanent move to Greece has been access to materials. He uses a specific English-made paper, now notoriously difficult to obtain due to customs rules.

“Painting materials were not part of the withdrawal. I cannot get this paper out of England anymore. I order it online, I pay for it, it gets as far as customs in Germany, and it gets returned to England.”

Instead, friends and colleagues in Scandinavia have resorted to an informal supply chain.

“They buy it from Sweden, have it delivered to Finland, and then bring it in a portfolio for me so that I can work. I mean, that’s ridiculous.”

Mr Foot is in the midst of another significant change, as he is set to move to a farm in the Greek countryside. Works in fact started on his new studio, the garage is being converted, on Tuesday morning.

The new large studio, with lots of glass, will bring in natural light and he said will be the first “real studio” he has had.

“I’ve always made use of a room and changed it. Whereas this, I can close the door. It’s my private space,” he said.

Despite this focus on Greece, the artist insists that Gibraltar will not have to wait as long to see his return once more and he credits local author and friend, Rebecca Calderon, for doing all the work behind the scenes that make his exhibitions possible.

He also spoke of Gibraltar’s audience and the presence of school groups during his exhibition and was pleasantly surprised to hear that he is actually studied in the schools and that the children knew who he was.

“Gibraltar is a very good audience. They bring all these kids, and they’re interested… I think I’ll be back sooner. I’m not going to do it every year, but I’ll be back in a couple of years, I would imagine.”

While attending his exhibit, the children have been given an opportunity to ask some questions.

In doing so, they learnt that he has had a lifelong interest in painting, starting from early childhood.

He told them of a significant childhood memory of drawing St. Paul's Cathedral in London which his mother kept and, on the back, is written ‘James aged 4 years 10 months’. He still has that painting.

He told them he has been a professional painter since age 25, after working in theatre, and produces about 50-60 paintings annually. And despite creating many pieces, he considers his most famous work to be a commissioned painting of the British handover ceremony in Hong Kong.

The exhibition finishes on Thursday, and will be open until 7pm at the John MacIntosh Hall.