Finley Yates is an artist from South Ayrshire, living and working in Edinburgh. His current body of work, A Picture of Wholeness, uses painting as a time-capsule. Within the series, Finley’s painting becomes a tool for collation and illumination, dredging a deep trench of interests spanning Contemporary Literature and Music, Science-Fiction, and Marine life.
The title of this series comes from William Saroyan’s The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934). In this collection of short stories, Saroyan expounds a theory about the nature of ‘true impressions.’ His theory argues that honest depictions require a repeated circling of the subject, translating it from all angles, perspectives, and moods.
A Picture of Wholeness favours communication and experience above all, rejecting linearity, narrative and logic, hoping to form – as a wholly composed series – an honest visual language reflective of Finley’s perspective on the world.
Finley graduated with a BA (Hons) Painting from the Edinburgh College of Art ’26. We are delighted to be featuring Finley in our BREAKOUTS exhibition.
