Studied at Glasgow School of Art
McWhinnie’s paints in a personal and recognisable style depicting a variety of subjects
including the circus, dancers and musicians. He often employs a set of recurring
images such as vases of tulips or the pattern on the fabric of a dress. In many of
the paintings the action is occurring outside of the tightly cropped frame and we
are given clues as to what event the inscrutable spectators are watching.
Beyond the characters in the foreground we are offered a window onto scenes of architecture
and landscapes as dusk falls over the provincial towns of McWhinnie’s travels through
Italy and France.
McWhinnie won the Morton Fraser Award from Visual Arts Scotland 2004 and the Millers
Prize at the Paisley Institute in 2006.