Scottish artist Alison Watt (born 1965) first made her name while still a student at the Glasgow School of Art when she won the (London) National Portrait Gallery's annual portrait award (now sponsored by BP) in 1987. While much of her early career concentrated on the female nude, her work evolved to focus on the draperies which surrounded them, enigmatic, poetic, and calm, but nowhere near as straightforward as they might at first appear. Her current exhibition, at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (until 9 January), goes in a different direction. A painterly dialogue with 18th century artist Allan Ramsay, she focuses on details from his portraits, taking them out of context to create disarmingly simple still life paintings in which the objects may or may not retain their former symbolism. This talk will introduce the artist and her career, including the work from her two-year stint as Associate Artist at the National Gallery in London (2006-2008), and will concentrate on the current exhibition, looking both at her works and those of Ramsay which inspired her.

 Unlike other organisations, I'm afraid my talks are not recorded. This is, in part, because I am not an organisation!