With Dapplewing, Elgin-born artist Neil Dallas Brown (1938-2003) returns to one of his enduring themes: birds in flight. Rendered in a limited palette of green hues, the painting captures a wing slicing through a dreamlike expanse. The fluid, abstracted background evokes both sky and water, creating an ambiguous space that heightens the painting’s surreal quality. Dallas Brown’s work often blends figuration with abstraction, drawing on motifs from nature to explore psychological states and symbolic meaning. Here, the solitary wing may suggest movement, freedom, and isolation. The work exemplifies his distinctive visual language, shaped by decades of teaching and exhibiting across the UK, and his belief that “painting is an affectionate devotion”.

Neil Dallas Brown, 1938-2003

Born in Elgin, Dallas Brown studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee from 1954 to 1959, and at Hospitalfield in Arbroath in the summer of 1958. In 1959 the David Murray Scholarship and the Scottish Education Department Travelling Scholarship allowed him to visit France, Italy and Spain. He continued his studies at the Royal Academy Schools in London. 
Dallas Brown openly acknowledged the influence of such American artists as Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella and Leon Berkowitz on the development of his work. In 1970 he was the major prizewinner in the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Open Painting Exhibition. He exhibited widely in both one-man and group exhibitions in Britain and abroad.