In his debut solo exhibition with the Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh based artist Keith Epps presents an intriguing array of pastoral landscapes.

A highly technical painter, Epps’ work is brilliantly representational, however not photorealistic. Although his subject matter is not limited to specific genres, a fascination with clouds and sky has led him to produce a body of beautifully executed landscapes. However, there is a sinister undertone to these panoramas that at first appear wonderfully still and serene.

For some time now, Epps has been driven by the theme of Et in Arcadia Ego - where the dark and painful exists within the light and beautiful. For him these ideas had their genesis in watching the 1990s Yugoslav wars on television; finding it hard to reconcile those ghastly events happening within such a beautiful setting. Epps has worked this theme into his paintings, fulfilling its potential to convey the feelings and ideas of the artist and provoke further thought.

Born in London in 1954, Epps was brought up to Edinburgh in 1965, where he still lives and works today. Studying Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art from 1973-77 he then briefly door-stepped for house-drawing commissions. During the next decade, rarely exhibiting, he produced figurative work that expressed his personal fears, doubts and anxieties.

After moving into serious antique furniture restoration, he ceased painting altogether by the late 1980s upon becoming self-employed.

Having resumed painting in 2007, he has continued to work with figures, which find their way into his landscapes, often providing the unsettling element lurking in amongst the splendour.

Epps is a member of the SSA and this is his second solo exhibition.