The art of putting myths in the picture

PORTOBELLO beach, and Paul Reid was down on his hands and knees positioning a little golden goblet into the sand.

As the waves rolled in, Cockenzie Power Station's chimneys to his right, the promenade chippies and cafes behind, he captured image after image on his camera, each angle, each shadow, every gleam of sunlight on its gilded curves, all recorded, filed and saved.

Back home in the "bland room" he calls his studio - bland and empty because most of what Paul does tends to leave and not come back, destined instead to hang on the walls of wealthy art lovers - the little golden cup and his beach snaps were propped up in preparation for Hercules' arrival, muscular and a bit dishevelled, salty spray from the Atlantic drying in his hair and the cool water lapping at his bare feet.

Today the cup, the beach, the Greek hero and Penicuik-based artist Paul are at a New Town art gallery preparing for one of the most eagerly anticipated art exhibitions of the Festival.

On the walls of The Scottish Gallery in Dundas Street hang the results of intense labour, meticulously detailed realistic paintings that at first glance might look as if they've time travelled from an age when art wasn't all about unmade beds and pickled cows, yet on closer inspection are curiously modern: half men-half beasts of Greek mythology against backgrounds that could be - and sometimes are - strikingly familiar, in their hands or at their feet little glimpses of the modern world that shouldn't be there but still somehow don't look out of place.

Combined, they make up the latest collection of work by an increasingly acclaimed artist whose art school tutors originally sighed and said he was doing it all wrong, but who now counts royalty and famous patrons among his ardent fans.

Eventually someone will spend thousands and take home the Hercules painting - there are two to choose from - the little goblet that sat at Portobello sand now depicted as the giant vessel granted to him by Helios (the sun) so he could sail to Erythia where he was to kill a three-headed giant and bring home his cattle.

"The cup was photographed at Portobello beach," nods Paul, "and the beach in the painting is Gullane. I need to have photographs and rough materials to work from so I'll scout around looking for whatever hills I find or beaches. I use the Scottish landscape, because that's what's around me."

The result is that the gentle lines of rolling hills behind Odysseus, depicted in one striking painting not as an Ancient Greek but with brown hiking boots, kilt socks and rifle as he finds men cruelly transformed with pigs' heads by the witch goddess Circe, are based on scenery around Ballater. In another version of the Hercules myth, the rocks of Gullane in the foreground are complemented by the island of Fidra rising from the sea beyond.

The largest work - a 7ft by 5ft scene of Theseus and the Minotaur with a GBP60,000 price tag - involved him meticulously preparing mini models to base it on, including a mini set of stairs, a moulded lion's head and tiny candelabra adapted, bizarrely, from a little Egyptian chariot model bought at a branch of Game Station which he took apart and rebuilt using nails and glue.

One of the most intense works, a black ink depiction of the gigantic form of a cyclops, towers over the long defunct brewery buildings at Duddingston Road West, which father-of-two Paul found almost by accident and felt perfectly suited the brute force of the mythical creatures.

If the images look as if they've fallen from the pages of a fantasy novel, then it's probably not surprising. Paul, 37, today keeps a guide to Greek mythology art - a reference point for many of his works - handy, but as a child growing up in Scone, Perthshire, it was Ladybird books that retold ancient stories with fascinating illustrations that caught his attention, before giving way to teenage superhero comic books.

"It was actually comics I wanted to do. I loved 2000 AD and Judge Dredd," he confesses. "I spent a lot of time copying the images, and when you think about it, comic book artists tend to draw perspective and human form - they need to know where all the muscles go and how they work. They don't spend as long as I do on it, but they need to be able to do it. So when I went to art college, I could already draw the human form correctly, because I'd spent so long drawing Batman."

His realistic style, the "superhero" mythical characters and their stories which even now find their way into modern culture means he's amassed a league of fans from a sector not generally known for their patronage of art galleries and highbrow masterpieces - the video games community.

"I'm from that generation that played a lot of video games and used the first home computers," says Paul, who, in turn, is hugely appreciative of the art skills involved in today's massively popular games industry. "They seem to like my stuff and I like a lot of what they are doing."

At the other end of the scale, his work has drawn royal patronage. The Prince of Wales has followed his work from his graduation from Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee, where tutors keen to promote more contemporary styles often marked down his efforts, to his first Scottish solo exhibition at the Scottish Gallery in 2002.

So impressed was Prince Charles, that he invited Paul to join him on a royal official visit to Turkey and Jordan in 2004, where he soaked up the desert landscapes and ancient cities and returned to his Edinburgh studio to create striking artworks, three of which are now in royal possession.

Now his latest work is waiting for inspection - and already sold stickers are dotted around the Scottish Gallery's walls - prices range from a couple of thousand pounds for a sketch, to the supersize GBP60,000.

So who buys his work? "Various people," he smiles. "I'm lucky. There's one very famous person who's bought two or three, but I'm not supposed to say who. They bought large paintings though, so you can assume they have quite big walls . . ."

 

Appeared Edinburgh Evening News August 2013

2013 Johnston Publishing Limited

Heroes went Forth to beat Germans

THE scene is a boy's bedroom above a busy pub, a stone's throw from the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
Young Ferg Handley is turning the pages of his favourite comic, eyes darting between pictures and story, imagination lost in a bloody war fought and won before he was born, brought vividly to life between the pages of his favourite Commando comic.
Inside titles such as Walk - or Die!, Hellfire Landing and Hun Bait lurked Nazis called Wolfgang and Herman, armed with Karabiner 98 Kurz machine guns yelling "Achtung!" and "Die British!" before a well placed bullet finished them off.
There'd be thrilling tales of high drama, risk, a few hand-grenade explosions and a bit of comic relief. Tommy might have shouted "Aaargh, I'm HIT" once or even twice but eventually he'd march home, victory ringing in his ears.
"The Second World War was part of my growing up," recalls Ferg. "I read these comics years after it had ended but at the same time my dad had served in Bomber Command in the Second World War, with more than 1000 hours flying time to his name.
"My parents and grandparents would speak about people having been evacuated during the war.
"They'd talk about rationing and how my mum queued for three hours and came back with a banana only for my uncle to take one look at it and announce he didn't want it.
"So the war, although in the past, wasn't really that far away."
Today the war is, of course, much further in the past. Ferg is 47, he might have been expected to have outgrown those days of war stories and be using his MA in politics, pushing his pen in a sterile office somewhere.
Instead he's still flicking through copies of Commando. The only difference is he's the one telling the stories.
As one of Commando's regular writers since 1996, Ferg has hundreds of tales of British derring-do to his credit.
But it's his most recent that is closest to home.
Divided Aces was published yesterday, a high-octane action tale inspired by the real-life drama in the skies above the Firth of Forth, 71 years ago.
It was 1939, RAF 603 Squadron - founded in 1925 as something of a hobby flying club for well-heeled city gents - had been embodied into the RAF and placed on a war footing for the first time in its history.
Its motto was the Doric "Gin ye Daur" (If You Dare), many of the pilots nicknamed their planes after their home city - names like Portobello, Auld Reekie and Corstorphine. The last thing they expected on October 16, 1939, was a German
raid.
Nine German aircraft took Scottish air defence by surprise as they roared over the Forth towards the Royal Navy base at Rosyth.
Their audacious raid left three boats damaged - HMS Southampton and two cruisers, HMS Mohawk and HMS Edinburgh - 16 Royal Navy crew dead, 44 wounded.
Startled members of 603 Squadron were scrambled from their Turnhouse base. Likewise, 602 City of Glasgow Squadron were raised from Drem in East Lothian.
Eventually, they shot down two Heinkels into the Firth of Forth and a bomber off May Island - the first enemy aircraft to be shot down over Britain.
Ferg came across their remarkable - and often neglected - tale as he researched background for other Commando tales to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.
"I'd read a book about the Battle of Britain and it gave me some ideas for Commando stories," recalls Ferg, of Willowbrae. "But all the action seemed to be set in the south of England.
"I knew there had to have been action further north, but there was not a lot of literature about it.
"Then I started to really look at it and I figured that there was definitely enough material for a story."
The facts from 1939 merged with a fictional story around a central character who - like Ferg - returns to Edinburgh after a spell away to rediscover the city of his youth.
"I was born in southern England," he explains. "We moved here when I was three so there was some stick about my English background.
"It was only after I returned here after living in London for 15 years that I started to appreciate what a wonderful and inspiring city it is."
Divided Aces is just the latest of around 300 Commando comic stories he's penned. When he's not tackling the Germans or the Japanese in Commando, he's Spider-Man - Ferg has been publisher Panini's sole writer for the superhero for the past three years and, for one story, brought the webbed one to Edinburgh. Once he created an X-Men story - plonking them in the depths of Dumfries.
Yet controlling the destiny of superheroes and battle-scarred soldiers was never his original career plan.
"I was doing an MA in politics but by the time my course was finishing I was pretty scunnered with it all," he recalls.
"I started to think about whether I might have a career in writing."
Those childhood days spent immersed in his comics flooded back.
"I knew there was this big underground scene, that comics like Dark Knight Returns and Watchman and V for Vendetta were adult stuff.
"I thought I'd like to do a graphic novel. The problem was how to do it."
He learned how to write in comic script form - a laborious process that involves writing everything from the cartoon characters' dialogue to descriptions of scenes for the artist.
With the Commando comics, comes a requirement too for fine historic detail and research.
In Divided Aces, the attention to detail is meticulous.
"I went for the most familiar images, partly because it's easier to get references for the artist. I wanted to depict the beauty of Edinburgh, to suggest that it was so important to protect the city.
"Pretty much all of the landmarks I scripted made it into the artwork. Jose Maria Jorge, the artist, is Spanish and got so many small details in - like iron railings missing from a school playground, melted down for the war effort."
Divided Aces is one of four new adventures which marks the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, and although Commando comics is heading for its own 50th anniversary next year, Ferg believes it will be around for years to come.
"Several factors account for the British fascination for the war," he says. "We were on the winning side, which makes it a popular slice of history. It's why there are so many films, dramas and books. Commando taps into all that."
• Commando: Divided Aces is available now, £1.35.
Additional reporting by Liam Rudden

Published Edinburgh Evening News, 16 September 2010.