Muriel Barclay

Muriel Barclay has an unusual arts background. Born and bred in Glasgow she graduated with a degree from Edinburgh University before heading to London where she initially worked in Jacques O’Hana’s Gallery in London’s Mayfair.

She returned to Glasgow to teach history and raise her family, while at the same time studying Drawing and Painting at Glasgow School of Art and History of Fine Art at the Open University.

Muriel left teaching in 2001 to become a professional artist and has flourished ever since.

Muriel’s free spirit comes across in her work with a rare balance being achieved between an often, vivid colour palette and an intimacy with the subjects or characters involved. Known for her painting of figures and/or animals, Muriel’s objective with her work is to engage the viewer in a narrative within her painting, a narrative that may or may not be “her” narrative, but nevertheless a storyline all the same.

Interested in relationships and how these can be captured in a painting, Muriel has an innate facility to portray human movement, posture, mood and thought, in settings that invariably speak of occasion and/or play. Her painting of animals speaks of careful observation, study and understanding.