Jolomo’s family history inspires an ocean of seascapes ahead of new exhibition

He has always felt compelled to paint seascapes, but it is only in the past six months that John Lowrie Morrison has fully understood why.

Better known as Jolomo, a recent discovery about his family history revealed that Scotland’s coastlines are in his DNA.

“Last November, my cousin, Reverend Iain Morrison, gave me a set of records he had been looking at,” explained John, widely regarded as one of the country’s most popular contemporary artists.

“It was the Registers of Lightkeepers, and there was my great-grandfather, Murdoch Morrison. He was a lighthouse keeper’s assistant.

“I couldn’t believe it – I’m famed for painting lighthouses. When I saw the information, I realised this passion must have gone through me. It’s in my blood. When I look back at my paintings, they are very much towards the sea, the cliffs and the rocks. I love all that.

“A lot of people say to me that I like blue skies, but I don’t, I like the wild and everything bashing about.”

Jolomo’s work

Inspired by the unearthing of his family’s history, the prolific artist began painting seascapes at a rate of knots. Fifty of them feature in his latest exhibition, which opened in Crieff last week.

“They are of Lewis and Harris in particular, but quite a few other places. I love the west coast; I’ll never stop painting it. I started in November and finished at the beginning of March, and some are quite big. I spent a lot of time on them.”

Working on seascapes over the winter, those wild scenes of crashing waves and heavy skies that John enjoys so much were there in abundance.

“That comes out in a lot of these paintings – the huge waves going over the rocks,” he commented.

The new paintings show waves crashing on the cliffs at Mangersta on the Isle of Lewis, and the famously wild waters of the Gauldrons, Machrihanish, to calmer seas lapping the beaches of Iona and Tiree.

John visits the locations he wishes to paint, taking photographs and making sketches, and then returns to his studio in Argyll and Bute to do the rest of the work.

“I like to use my memory as well,” he explained. “When I was a teacher at Lochgilphead I used to know everyone in the high school. I couldn’t do that now, but if it’s to do with an image I can recall it right away. It’s incredible.”

Family inspiration

John grew up in Glasgow, but his family is from Harris and it was a trip he made often with his father, Murdo.

Before knowing about his great-grandfather, the artist thought his love of the sea came from his dad.

© Colin Hattersley

“My father’s family is from the Isle of Harris and my dad spent time working on fishing boats in The Minch, so I grew up listening to great stories about Hebridean fishermen.

“As a wee boy I soaked this up and wanted to go and live on Harris – this feeling has stayed with me all my life.

“Dad used to go up all the time, travelling from Pollokshaws to Oban or Mallaig, then taking the boat over to Harris. I would go with him, and I loved it. We have lots of relatives on Skye as well.

“I remember my dad always being on yachts at Tighnabruaich.

“The first lighthouse I painted was the one at Tighnabruaich, Eilean Dubh. It’s not a very big one, but me and my brother used to play down there. That was the start of me painting lighthouses and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

© Jolomo

His favourite is the Bell Rock, the world’s oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse, which is off the coast at Arbroath.

He did a 6ft-by-6ft painting, based on drawings and photos done on a previous visit to the Bell Rock in 1968, for the Northern Lighthouse Board to commemorate the bicentenary of the lighting of the Bell Rock in 1811. It was unveiled by the The Princess Royal at Holyrood Palace.

Trained as a painter at Glasgow School of Art, John worked in education for 25 years before going full-time with his painting in 1997.

His signature style of expressionist landscapes in high-key colour made him one of the country’s most successful artists. His works are in the collections of Princess Anne, Sting, Madonna and Simon Le Bon, and commissions remain a significant part of his work.

Most of the paintings in this new exhibition have sold already, with a portion of the proceeds going to charity.

John added: “A good part of the money will go to the Carers Trust, which I’m vice-president of along with my wife. We’ve been giving to that every year for more than 20 years.

“We’ve been carers in the past and still are now, so it’s great to have that money coming in.”

Morrison & The Sea – The Rocks – The Cliffs by John Lowrie Morrison OBE, The Strathearn Gallery, Crieff, until June 2