Spotlight On… Artist Alexander Millar
An interview with popular Newcastle-based artist Alexander Millar
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Alexander Millar is one of the country’s best-loved artists, his paintings of ‘gadgies’ instantly recognisable and found on walls all over the world.
Although hailing from Springside, near Kilmarnock, he made Newcastle his home in the early eighties and shows no sign of leaving. Newcastle is lucky enough to have one of the two galleries displaying his work, Alexander Millar Fine Art on Grey Street, and he’s become something of a local hero. We caught up with him to talk about his life and work.
Millar arrived on Tyneside because his ex-wife was from Longbenton – a two-week holiday turned into a lifetime’s residence. He worked a variety of jobs from electrical goods salesman to window cleaner and didn’t always want to be an artist.
“I wanted to become an actor”, he admits. “I had the chance to join the Scottish Drama Association. I’ve always wanted to be a thespian, I did some short films for students and stuff.”
In fact, having filled the Tyne Theatre with a one-man show for charity a while back, he’s still thinking about something else along those lines in the future.
Millar is very open about an often difficult life, and that has fed into his art. For example, his career took off just as his father was dying from Parkinson's Disease, which is why paintings of men walking away is a recurrent theme in his work. He suggests that having them walk away also allows the viewer to fill in the gaps. “They can add their own faces or their own memories to it and it can become their family. And seen from the back, you're actually joining their journey - you're part of the journey itself.”
His love for Newcastle is evident, and he says that sitting in the gallery and watching people walking past is like watching a sitcom. “Everything's here on your doorstep, all human life is here!”
There’s a lot of humour and romance in Millar’s work, but there’s sadness too and a lot of his life’s difficulties make it into his paintings. “It’s a West coast Scottish thing – take the most tragic events but try and see the funny side of them – it’s the thing Billy Connolly does so well.”
Millar explains that since we’re confronted by darkness every day, he wants to create art that brings light into people’s lives, or as he puts it, “create a lovely atmosphere for folks when they look at something they’ve got on the wall.”
Millar explains that he really enjoys having his own gallery on Grey Street. “It's lovely to have a base for people to come in and view. my originals - they're kind of few and far between these days, I only work with handful of galleries around the UK and it's lovely to have that immediate contact with people. I often set up in Blakes with a coffee and draw people, people will come over and talk while I’m working.”
In fact, as well as considering more one-man shows, Millar wants to host some audiences in the galleries themselves - “to invite people along to have the experience of me blathering on about my stories, and to be able to watch a painting being done from scratch."
Millar is charming and voluble company, so you could see these audiences being a hit, and he’s been asked to write his autobiography too. He’s certainly full of stories – from his father shooting his grandfather (and blowing his leg off) to meeting people like Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, from living in his car after a divorce to meeting a mystic who changed his life.
Given how beloved Millar and his gadgies are on Tyneside, it would surely be a local best-seller and we certainly hope his artist-audience events come into fruition.
Alexander Millar Fine Art is at 55-59 Grey Street and is open from 10am – 5.30pm daily (noon to 5pm on Sundays)
