Jackie Anderson is an unusual painter of portraits.

Instead of forging a personal re­la­tion­ship with her sitter, she often paints from pho­to­graphs of passers-by going about their business, unaware of or un­con­cer­ned by the artist’s gaze, crafting a curiously intimate re­la­tion­ship between subject and audience.

These are works full of movement, too, often having the look of pho­to­graph­ic double exposures, with figures repeated and over-layed capturing the temporal space between fleeting moments. Physical space is to the fore, too - buildings, doorways and street furniture make their presence known, but only barely, reduced to vague shadows or simple sil­hou­et­tes - a hint that Anderson’s chief interest is in in­vest­ig­at­ing that apparent con­tra­dic­tion, the complete privacy of time spent alone in busy public places, sur­roun­ded by others. Similarly, a series of portraits of the artist’s friends shows subjects caught at the moment they rise to leave a room - an un­th­ink­ing act, and an in­sig­n­i­fic­ant one, is turned into a split second heavy with potential by Anderson’s taught, focused ex­am­in­a­tion of it.

The con­cep­tu­al un­der­pin­n­ings of Anderson’s por­trait­ure are matched by an un­con­ven­tion­al practice. A gifted draught­s­wo­man - seeing one of her subjects beside their painting is enough to take your breath away - Anderson’s technical skill is clearly the result of hard labour, not simple in­spir­a­tion. She is, too, something of a tra­di­tion­al­ist and craft­s­wo­man, stretch­ing her own canvases and priming them with rabbit-skin glue, and has developed a laborious, almost obsessive technique that relies on the removal of oil paint with tur­pen­t­ine as much as its ap­plic­a­tion, and the repeated ap­plic­a­tion of pale, tran­s­lu­cent washes. Perhaps sur­pris­ingly, this de­lib­er­ate, difficult and time-consuming technique is self-taught: Anderson began her career as an artist in 1995 after gra­du­at­ing with a degree in sociology from the Un­i­ver­s­ity of Aberdeen, only later com­p­let­ing an MFA at Duncan of Jord­an­stone­ Art College.

The end result is a rare blend of ac­cess­ib­il­ity - these are re­p­res­ent­a­tion­al, fig­ur­at­ive paintings after all - and a complex, subtle set of con­cep­tu­al concerns.

As a result, Anderson is drawing in­creas­ing attention from col­lect­ors - her gallerist Amber Roome considers an outing at the London Art Fair this year a con­sid­er­able success - and recently won the RSA Alastair Salverson Schol­ar­ship, an award intended to enable emerging artists to travel abroad in service of their art, and includes the op­por­tun­ity for a solo show at the Royal Scottish Academy. As a result, Anderson is currently based in Trinidad & Tobago, re­sear­ch­ing her family’s links to the West Indies, focussing on the island’s mul­t­i­c­ul­tur­al aspects and the pop­u­la­tion’s use of public space. Given that Anderson’s paintings tend toward the pale, wan and tran­s­par­ent it is hard to guess how temporary re­lo­c­a­tion to warmer climes will impact on her practice - a wholesale con­ver­sion to ste­r­eo­typ­ic­al carnival scenes and sun-kissed beaches seems rather unlikely - but, given her subtle, evocative treatment of Glaswe­gi­ans in Glasgow, there’s little doubt that she will return with fresh, un­ex­pec­ted insights into Trin­id­a­di­an culture and en­vir­on­ments.

This review was first published in The Herald in July, 2007.