Hung Out to Dry Over the Tay: Christy Burdock’s Portraits of a Scottish Community

In late 2022, I exhibited Hung Out to Dry Over the Tay at Tatha Gallery in Newport-on-Tay, Scotland. This solo exhibition came after winning the Tatha Gallery Prize at the SSA exhibition in The Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. The show brought together a series of figurative artworks, mainly single and group portraits of people and their dogs, inspired by the landscapes and people of Dundee. As with all my narrative portrait work, the series combines close observation with metaphor to reflect on everyday life.

Inspiration from Dundee
Dundee was a vibrant Scottish city with a mixture of different people from all walks of life. I was drawn to the area’s layered histories, quiet streets, and conversations overheard in small cafés. These moments became the seeds for artworks that explore the social fabric of the region. As with my previous projects, including Narratives of Britain, the work is both documentary and dream like, perhaps a little surreal.

Process and Technique
Each piece in Hung Out to Dry Over the Tay began with on-location sketches, quickly capturing atmosphere before the scene shifted. Back in the studio, I developed these sketches and pphotos into paintings or larger drawings. This process allows me to balance realism with symbolic detail a brush mark or a line can suggest both an individual’s mood and the larger cultural moment they inhabit.

Viewers at the Tatha Gallery often recognised echoes of their own lives in these images, which is always deeply rewarding for me.

Connecting the Series to My Practice
This exhibition builds on my ongoing exploration of figurative narrative art — portraits that capture not just a likeness, but the story of a place and time. From my residency at the House of Illustration to paintings like Dress Code, my work seeks to chart the social histories we live every day, often unnoticed.

See the Exhibition and Get in TouchYou can explore selected works from Hung Out to Dry Over the Tay on the Tatha Gallery exhibition page.

To learn more about my artistic process or to discuss a potential portrait, please contact me directly.