Ok so what you may wonder has William Gillies got to do with Mossdale?

Well…Patti was taught by one of his students, so really he has a direct link to Mossdale and she is running a session as follows:

Paint and Pour with Patti Leino

14th January 2026 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

£15.00

This workshop will take influence from the William Gillies: Modernism and Nation exhibition. Gillies has been a huge influence on Patti’s art, via her own tutor the late Archie Sutter Watt.  We’ll put into practice ways in which Gillies’s insights and his artistic lineage might affect our own work and thinking – or, as Archie used to say, ‘Och, just bash it about a bit!’.

All materials will be provided. Booking essential.

You are also welcome to bring your own materials, and any objects or images that are significant and/or inspiring to you.

Paint and Pour:

About Paint and Pour: 

Paint and Pour is a monthly bookable artist-led session for adults at Kirkcudbright Galleries, which runs on a Wednesday evening throughout the winter. These sessions are aimed at all abilities, and relate to our Winter exhibitions programme:

William Gillies: Modernism and Nation – Kirkcudbright Galleries | Dumfries and Galloway | Artists | Gallery

The Galloway Hoard: Rock Crystal Jar. – Kirkcudbright Galleries | Dumfries and Galloway | Artists | Gallery

Tea and coffee will be available, and you are welcome to bring your own refreshments (wine glasses provided!)

Anyway, in case you’ve missed it, there is a spectacularly good exhibition of his work at Kirkudbright Galleries and it is well worth a visit.

And just so that you are in the know!…

William Gillies: Modernism and Nation

11th October 2025 @ 10:00 am – 11th January 2026 @ 5:00 pm

Free

William Gillies: Modernism and Nation 
On display from 11th October – 11th January 2026 
Gallery Two, First Floor 

William Gillies: Modernism and Nation features paintings, drawings and associated photographs, archives and objects from Gillies’ entire career. It is accompanied and inspired by a ground breaking new book on the artist, William Gillies: Modernism and Nation in British Art by Andrew McPherson. This tour has been organised by the Royal Scottish Academy with support from Museums Galleries Scotland.

The exhibition seeks to challenge the idea that William Gillies was a ‘countryman’, and shows that there is much more to discover in his paintings. A more unified understanding of his art shows he embraced Modernist alternatives in his painting and unlocks previously overlooked meanings in his portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. Works that highlight this understanding form the focus of this exhibition.

Born in Haddington, Sir William George Gillies RSA (1898-1973) studied at Edinburgh College of Art. He served in the First World War and travelled to France and Italy after graduating, returning to the college as an accomplished artist and tutor, where he taught for more than forty years until his retirement as Principal in 1966.Throughout his career Gillies explored and developed different approaches to his painting. He experimented with a Cubist style after studying in Paris in 1923,and abstraction in the 1930s, eventually settling on a Modernist aesthetic characterised by an energetic and expressionistic application of paint. Gilles suffered particular personal traumas throughout his life, and Modernism gave him the creative freedom to address them through his art. Gillies is renowned for his landscape and still life paintings, but his portraiture also offers a fascinating insight into his life and his art. He is one of the best-known Scottish artists of the last century.