Donald Urquhart (b. 1959)

Scottish artist and site-specific sculptor, born at Bankfoot, Perthshire. He studied drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art (1978–82), followed by a period of postgraduate study at the Royal Academy Study Course in the Prado Museum, Madrid (1982). His work, both as an exhibiting artist and as a practitioner of environmental intervention, is almost exclusively concerned with the natural landscape, with particular regard to contemporary ecological issues. In addition to solo exhibitions such as Fields (St Andrews, Stavanger, Kilkenny and Derry, 2001) and Invisible Ideas (Edinburgh, 2007), he has carried out numerous important public commissions, including Thocht Stone (Perth, 1998), An Enlightened Stand (Grizedale Sculpture Park, Cumbria, 2000), and Lines/Plane: Larus/Cygnus (River Garavogue, Sligo, 2004). He also participated with Jake Harvey and a number of other artists in the creation of An Turas, a ferry shelter on the isle of Tiree designed by Sutherland Hussey Architects, which won the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland’s Scottish New Building of the Year Award in 2003. He is currently Reader in Art Space Nature on the MA and MFA courses at Edinburgh College of Art.

Sources: (Glasgow) Herald, Arts Supplement, 29 December 2007, p. 8; Urquhart, D., Fields (ex. cat.), Kilkenny, 2001; Urquhart, D., Lines/Planes: Larus/Cygnus (ex. cat.), Sligo, n.d. [2004].

Ray McKenzie 2018